BANGOR, Maine — It may only have been one game in a long season, but it is one this University of Maine men’s basketball team is likely to remember for a long time.
Facing a veteran Albany ballclub that has won back-to-back America East championships, it was a youthful, scrappy UMaine team that found a way to win.
Sophomore guard Aaron Calixte made two free throws with 4.9 seconds remaining on Friday afternoon, capping a clutch performance that lifted the Black Bears to an 81-79 victory over the Great Danes at the Cross Insurance Center.
Calixte admitted this one was special.
“Definitely, because we know what type of team they are,” he said after scoring 12 of his team’s last 17 points on the way to 16 points, three assists and a steal.
“They’re tough to beat at any place. For us to get this win, it’s a great push for us going into our next game in conference,” Calixte added.
It was the second straight league victory for coach Bob Walsh’s Black Bears (6-11, 2-2 AE), who ground out a win against a quality opponent. A beaming Walsh tried to keep it in perspective.
“Hopefully, it’s one we look back on in the future and say, ‘that was a big day for us,’” he said. “Right now for this team, it just feels like we beat Albany.”
It’s the same UAlbany (14-5, 3-1 AE) that had won 24 of its previous 25 games against conference opponents, had a seven-game winning streak snapped and lost to UMaine for the first time in seven meetings.
“I thought Maine did a great job of playing with tremendous energy, played very aggressive,” said UAlbany coach Will Brown. “They were constantly in attack mode on both ends. I think they deserved to win this game.”
UMaine received a tremendous boost from the return of Issac Vann.
The freshman forward, who had missed the previous 12 games with an ankle injury, surprisingly returned to score a team-high 19 points and grab five rebounds in 25 minutes of action.
“I wasn’t going to play him,” Walsh admitted.
Vann, a 6-foot-7 scorer, went through a full practice on Thursday for the first time in seven weeks after suffering a sprain and microfracture in his right ankle.
Walsh consulted with his assistant coaches, who suggested they use Vann coming off the bench.
“They said he’s got to play and luckily I was smart enough to listen to them,” he added.
Vann, who went 8-for-9 from the field, said he tried not to overdo things.
“I obviously missed a lot of games, so I tried to let the game come to me a little bit and not force anything,” he said. “(In the second half) I tried to come out with a lot of intensity and spark the team, try to play defense, and get to the rim and score.”
Vann was among several key contributors for the deep Black Bears. Sophomore guard Kevin Little overcame foul trouble to tally 16 points, senior post player Till Gloger contributed 11 points, and senior Shaun Lawton added nine points, four rebounds, four assists and two steals.
UMaine shot 57 percent from the field (33-for-58), including 61 percent in the first half, to help overcome 7-for-14 free-throw shooting.
“That’s the worst defensive display in the 15 years I’ve been here, so it’s very disappointing that we did not defend at all today,” Brown said.
Peter Hooley poured in a game-high 29 points on 11-for-17 shooting to propel the Great Danes, who were held to 32 percent shooting in the second half.
“We’ve got a long way to go defensively, but a team like that, as efficient as they are offensively, almost never shoots 32 percent. That says a lot about how tough we are,” Walsh said.
Evan Singletary provided 15 points and six rebounds, Mike Rowley chipped in with 12 points and seven rebounds and Joe Cremo added 11 points. UAlbany outrebounded UMaine 36-30.
It was a suspense-filled ending to the contest.
A steal and layup by Hooley tied the game at 77-all with a minute to play, but Lawton scored off his own miss after a drive to the basket to put the Black Bears back in front with 42.3 seconds remaining.
Singletary’s missed jumper with 18.8 gave UMaine a chance to make it a two-possession game, but Ray Sanders stole the inbounds pass and drove in for the tying basket with 11.2 to play.
Calixte eventually was fouled trying to break UAlbany’s pressure and sank both ends of a double bonus with 4.9 seconds left. After a timeout, Sanders drove through the lane into the path of Vann and missed a runner.
The ball went out of bounds as the horn sounded, but officials reviewed the video and ruled that UAlbany would have the ball with 0.3 seconds on the clock.
“I said, geez, I already shook the guy’s [Brown] hand for crying out loud,” Walsh said.
The Great Danes had one last shot, but Cremo’s tip-in try on a cut down the lane off an inbounds lob from Hooley missed the mark.
“It’s obviously a terrific win for us,” Walsh said. “I’m really, really proud. Two [key] things I thought about were our belief that we could win, our belief in what we were doing, and our toughness in the second half.”
UAlbany was almost unstoppable in the first half behind Hooley, who went 4-for-4 from the 3-point arc en route to 19 points. The visitors made a handful of turnovers against UMaine’s pressing and trapping defenses, but also worked the ball for some high-percentage baskets.
The Great Danes found their rhythm late in the half, connecting on 10 consecutive field-goal attempts and converting during a span of 6 minutes, 44 seconds. Two Cremo foul shots gave UAlbany a 48-38 advantage with 1:21 left in the half.
The Black Bears answered as Little hit a 15-foot jumper, then drained a 3-pointer in transition after another turnover to cut the deficit to five points at intermission.
“It kept us in striking distance,” said Walsh, who at halftime told his players, “this is our game to win if we start defending and I thought we defended a lot better in the second half.”