Retrievers’ victory is real inside job
UMBC discovered quickly that it would be able to get into the paint on offense against New Hampshire on Saturday.
The Retrievers were not hitting from the outside, so they kept pounding the ball down low and the Wildcats just could not stop them. UMBC scored nearly half of its points in the paint, stepped up on defense in the second half and was solid from the free-throw line en route to a 73-67 victory over New Hampshire in the quarterfinals of the America East playoffs at the UMBC Event Center.
The Retrievers advance to the conference semifinals Tuesday against an opponent and at a site to be determined. UMBC (16-16) won the tournament two years ago and lost to Vermont in the championship game last season.
Guard K.J. Jackson, battling a quad injury that left him unsure of how much he could give, led UMBC with 20 points.
Fellow guard R.J. Eytle-Rock added 15 and Brandon Horvath (Southern) pitched in with 13 as most of the Retrievers either drove inside, made a move and shot, or passed down low for a high-percentage chance. UMBC scored 38 of its 73 points in the paint.
“We came into the game knowing how they played defense,” said Horvath, a 6-foot-10 forward. “They just lock out and we had one-on-one matchup[s] in the post. We just had to exploit it and went to that over and over and over, and it worked.”
New Hampshire coach Bill Herrion said the way UMBC kept doing damage inside proved crucial.
“We weren’t good enough defensively,” Herrion said. “They’re really hard to guard. They just got the ball so deep against us, kind of in one-on-one situations and isolations, and we didn’t handle it well.”
Eytle-Rock and Jackson repeatedly made their way in among the big players from New Hampshire (15-15). They were then patient enough to come to a stop and go up with a soft jumper or twist through traffic for a layup.
“We took our chances to drive down there, and once we stopped on two feet we just pivoted and took what they gave us,” Jackson said.
The Retrievers needed to step up on defense in the second half as the Wildcats kept hitting 3-pointers. Six New Hampshire players made them, led by Sean Sutherlin (19 points, 13 rebounds) and Marque Maultsby (15 points), as the Wildcats went 11-for-28 overall on 3s.
But UMBC began extending its defense with about 12 minutes left to contest those longer shots. New Hampshire made three in those last minutes but the Retrievers’ long arms forced the Wildcats to alter their shots a bit at times, and it hurt them.
The defense also helped cause 15 turnovers, which led to 22 Retriever points.
“I thought the key moment for us was in the middle of the second half, where our defense kind of kicked in and we were able to execute several times in a half-court where we got some clean looks and separation,” UMBC coach Ryan Odom said. “I thought the defense was solid throughout.”
Still, a Maultsby 3 cut the lead to 66-64 with 1 minute, 28 seconds left. But EytleRock went 6-for-6 in the final five minutes from the line, and Jackson was 5-for-6 in the last 40 seconds as the Retrievers held on.
Overall, UMBC made 21 of 26 free throws, and that proved crucial. Eytle-Rock and Jackson combined to made 16 of 18 in this game, which carried UMBC.