The Boston University men’s basketball team won the America East championship with a dominating 66-40 victory against the University of Maine in front of a packed house at The Roof Saturday, and the team will saunter into the Big Dance for the first time since 1997. As the 16th seed in the West, BU will take on top-seeded University of Cincinnati at 7:40 p.m. at Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh.
The second-seeded Terriers quickly shattered any hopes that the Black Bears, the fifth seed, had coming into the title game, building leads of up to 33 points in the second half to earn BU a trip to the NCAA tournament and the program’s sixth conference championship.
“We probably played our best game of the year,” said BU coach Dennis Wolff, who captured his third America East title. “[The players] deserve a lot of credit, and they should enjoy this.”
The Terriers, who defeated the University of Hartford on a buzzer-beater March 3 after knocking off Northeastern University a day earlier, 86-76, were clearly playing their best basketball of the season during the tournament. Saturday’s championship was nationally televised on ESPN and, playing in front of a hostile red-clad crowd at The Roof, Maine looked dumbstruck early on.
After pulling even at 8 less than six minutes into the game, it seemed like Maine would go blow for blow with BU for the duration. But in a scarlet fury, the Black Bears fell victim to a ruthless onslaught of shots by BU. Back-to-back three-pointers by junior forward Billy Collins and freshman guard Chaz Carr started a 14-point run by BU with 14:05 left before halftime, culminating in another three by junior forward Paul Seymour.
Seymour and Carr each finished with a game-high 15 points, and Collins, who was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, added 14 points and eight rebounds. Battered by the run, Maine managed to score just four points over the next 10 minutes. A thunderous dunk by freshman forward Rashad Bell with four minutes before halftime put BU up 26-12 and by then it was clear: Bell’s dunk seemed to tell Maine, “Not today.”
“[BU] just kept pouring it on,” said Maine coach John Giannini. “I thought all along that they were the deepest team in the league and probably had the most players offensively that can shoot and pass. They obviously controlled the game from the beginning to the end; they deserve a lot of credit.”
“We did everything we could. We just couldn’t get back in the game,” Giannini said.
BU led 36-17 at halftime and continued to be unmerciful in the second half.
“I’m not sure I ever imagined that we’d be up 19 at halftime,” Wolff said. “In games like this you have to come out pretty well to begin the game and finish the half well, which we did, and we came out strongly to start the second half. We never really gave them breathing room where they could get back in.”
In the second half, Maine needed more than breathing room — it needed an oxygen tank. The Black Bears, who came back from an 11-point second half deficit in its semifinal game to upend No. 1 seed University of Vermont last weekend, continued to struggle on offense and was entirely unable to mount any semblance of a comeback. Maine hit only five of its 19 shots in the second. BU, however, never lost its touch, hitting 13 field goals in the second half to finish the game shooting nearly 44 percent.
The Terriers made only three treys in the final half, but sophomore forward Ryan Butt contributed 12 points inside and senior forward Nacho Rodriguez added six points and three rebounds.
“You just can’t give a team like BU open shots and they just took advantage of that,” said Maine’s Derrick Jackson. “It was just a total defensive breakdown.”
The Terriers stacked their lead to 22 points less than five minutes into the second, with the help of five quick points by Carr, and a layup by Seymour with 7:59 left gave BU its largest lead, 60-27.
“Once they had the 20-point lead midway through the second half, we knew we weren’t going to win the game,” Giannini said.
Understandably despondent following the game, Maine forward Errick Greene said, “The ball just didn’t drop our way. We just didn’t play good today, at all.”
The floor of The Roof shook throughout much of the first half and into the second as the Terrier faithful smelled a trip to the Big Dance. Chants of “We want Duke! We want Duke!” reverberated throughout the second half, as much a salute to BU as an early sending off to Maine.
As the final seconds ticked off, Seymour raised a fist in triumph as he dribbled the ball, only to be stampeded along with his teammates as a sea of red-shirted fans spilled onto the floor at the buzzer.
For the Terriers, it was a scene to savor.
“Our goal from the beginning was to make it to the Big Dance and win this league,” said Carr, who joined Collins on the All-Tournament team. “We had it in our minds through the whole year and we never had doubts.”
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