UMBC

West Harford, Conn.—The UMBC men’s basketball team saw its nine-game winning streak halted as the Retrievers misfired on several late chances and fell, 58-57 at Hartford. UMBC (21-8, 13-3) had sewn up the top seed in the America East Championships last Saturday, but the Hawks (16-15, 10-6) captured the second seed with the win.

UMBC will take on the winner of the No. 8 Stony Brook vs. No. 9 Maine contest (Friday, March 7, 7:00 p.m).on Saturday, March 8 at noon. Should the Retrievers advance, they would face the No. 4 Vermont vs. No. 5 Binghamton winner in the noon semifinal on Sunday.

UMBC senior post Cavell Johnson (Fort Washington, Md.) led all scorers with a season high of 24 points. He added ten rebounds as Johnson and junior forward Darryl Proctor (District Heights, Md.) each posted double-doubles. Proctor had 14 points and 13 caroms.

 Those were the only two Retrievers in double figures. UMBC shot only 33.3 percent from the floor, hitting 22 of 66 field goal attempts, a season-low in conference play. The Retrievers, who hit 14 three-point field goals vs. Hartford on Jan. 16, were just 4 of 18 on the day.

Despite that, UMBC had three chances to take the lead in the final 41 seconds. After senior guard Ray Barbosa (Allentown, Pa.) hit a trifecta to close the visitors’ deficit to 56-55 with 1:20 left, the Hawks missed a contest layup inside. Barbosa misfired on a three-pointer from the top of the key, but UMBC forced a five-second violation on Hartford’s inbound attempt with 36 seconds left.

This time, Barbosa tried a driving reverse layup, but could not convert and Hartford’s Joe Zeglinksi extended the lead to 58-55 with two free throws with 16 seconds to play. Proctor followed a Brian Hodges’ (Upper Marlboro, Md.) miss with a put-back with 3.2 seconds to play. Hartford tried to hurry the inbounds pass, but Michael Turner missed a connection with Jaret Von Rosenberg and threw the ball into the UMBC bench.

On the UMBC inbounds play, Barbosa attempted an off-balance three, but hit shot was short. Johnson got the rebound, but was unable to get a shot up before the horn sounded.

UMBC went ahead, 4-3, but Hartford led for the final 38 minutes, except for a span of 1:23 late in the first half, when Hodges hit his third three-pointer of the half to give UMBC a 29-28 lead with 5:21 to play in the half. UH led 36-33 at intermission and stretched the lead to as many as eight points early in the second half.

Junior guard Jay Greene (Whitehall, Pa.) had eight assists in the first 12 minutes, but finished with nine and just two turnovers in 40 minutes.

UMBC had 13 second-half offensive rebounds, but hit just nine of 34 attempts in the second stanza.