UMBC

Baltimore—The UMBC men’s basketball team held visiting Toledo scoreless for nearly eight minutes down the stretch and rallied to defeat the Rockets, 61-56 before 2,116 fans at the RAC Arena. It was the ninth consecutive home win for the Retrievers, who improve to 4-2 on the season, while the Toledo falls to 1-5.

Seniors Jay Greene (Whitehall, Pa.) and Darryl Proctor (District Heights, Md.) led UMBC with 14 points each. Greene, who scored 12 of his points in the second half, added six assists, while Proctor led the squad with eight caroms.

Senior guard Tyrone Kent led all scorers with 19 points in the first meeting ever between the two teams and UMBC’s first ever contest against an active member of the Mid-American Conference.

Kent’s deep three-point field goal with the shot clock winding down gave the visitors a 50-43 lead with 9:08 to play. The Retrievers then had a pair of empty possessions, until Proctor’s traditional three-point play trimmed to gap to 50-46 with 7:31 remaining. After two more missed opportunities by UMBC, Greene buried a three-point field goal with 5:04 to play, and after each team misfired again, sophomore forward Rich Flemming (Chester, Pa.) converted Greene’s alley-oop pass with a thunderous dunk to give UMBC a 51-50 advantage with 3:50 remaining.

Freshman Chauncey Gilliam (Columbia, Md.) hit a jumper on UMBC’s next possession, before Toledo’s Jonathan Amos converted two free throws with 1:16 to play to cut the deficit to 53-52. In all, Toledo had nine consecutive possessions without scoring.

Proctor then cut down the lane and converted another bucket and free throw with 47 seconds to play to give the hosts a four-point advantage. Two additional empty trips for Toledo resulted in two free throws each for UMBC’s Justin Fry (New Bloomfield, Pa.) and Greene and UMBC was comfortably in front, 60-52 with 24 seconds remaining.

The Retrievers made their first 17 free throw attempts of the game, before settling for an 18-of-20 effort (90 percent) from the stripe.

Gilliam hit all four shots from the floor and finished with 11 points, while Flemming added 10.

Neither team led by more than four points in the first half as the Rockets settled for a 31-30 advantage at intermission. UMBC has erased two halftime deficits to earn victories this season.

UMBC plays its second of three consecutive home games as they entertain Towson on Wednesday.