ORONO, Maine — After being forced to go with their second and third scoring options for much of Saturday night’s game, the University of Maine men got their first choice for the game-winning shot with about eight seconds left in regulation.
The shot wasn’t taken, however, and Chauncey Gilliam led the University of Maryland Baltimore County in overtime with eight of his 16 total points as the Retrievers notched a 73-68 victory at Alfond Arena.
Maine, 8-16 overall after its fifth straight loss, had two chances to win the game outright in the last 40 seconds of regulation. With 30 seconds to go, Bears freshman guard Andrew Rogers’ shot from the right side near the top of the key clanged off the rim with the shot clock running down, but Gerald McLemore got the rebound. After working the ball back out, Maine called timeout with 12 seconds left.
McLemore then got what appeared to be an open look off a screen play but tried to drive inside and past a defender before throwing up a shot that missed the mark. Sean McNally rebounded the ball at the right block with his back to the basket, but his desperate heave back up was way off the mark.
“We got the play we wanted,” said Maine coach Ted Woodward. “It was probably a shot he should have taken, but that’s something he’ll learn from.”
“At the end of the game, I had a clean shot and that was Plan A, but I tried to go by the guy and it closed up,” said McLemore, who finished with a team-high 25 points.
The Bears are now 3-8 in America East play. The 10-13 Retrievers are 4-7 in AE play after snapping a six-game road losing streak.
Senior forward Darryl Proctor led the Retrievers with 26 points and seven rebounds, but it was Gilliam who caught fire in OT and made the difference down the stretch.
UMBC’s freshman guard scored on a drive to the right block to open the scoring 14 seconds into overtime and then canned both ends of a 1-and-1 with 4:08 left to make it 61-57 UMBC. With 1:42 left, McLemore hit two foul shots, but again Gilliam responded, this time off a rebound of his own miss to make it 69-65 with 1:18 to go. Maine had to foul and UMBC hit four of six tries over the next 60 seconds.
“I was really, really proud in the way our guys responded to our depth situation in a tough game,” said UMBC coach Randy Monroe, who is missing sophomore forward Rich Flemming, out with a torn meniscus, for at least another week or two.
Monroe, who used just seven players in the game, said the difference was defense.
“We like to take away front to post and we didn’t do a real good job of that tonight, but we did a good job of squeezing — getting up into the guys setting up screens on guards — because we felt they’d be more effective if they came off ball screens and turned the corner to get a shot off or hit the guys low,” Monroe explained. “We wanted to let them get through so we could meet the ballhandlers on the other side.”
The result was a slow pace of offense for the Black Bears and 15 turnovers that UMBC converted into 20 points. Conversely, Maine scored just four off four UMBC turnovers.
“I think they did a great job following through screens and trailing our man, who had to make an extra move or more to get open,” said Maine’s Kaimondre Owes (15 points).
Rogers had a game-high nine assists and one turnover.
UMBC’s Matt Spadafora scored 16 to go with six rebounds.