For the first time in Randy Monroe's tenure as coach, the men's basketball team found itself packing for home after the first round of the America East Conference tournament when they lost, 76-59, to the University of Vermont.

But in the loss, UMBC showed a lot of promise for the future, as their young stars shined and had a big game for being the youngest team in the conference.

Freshman shooting guard Shawn Grant led the team with 17 points after making three three-pointers and grabbing five rebounds, while fellow freshman Adrian Satchell recorded his second career double-double after scoring 14 points and 12 rebounds.

"Shawn and Adrian are two young men that I'm extremely high on, and I think they'll have not a good career, but a great career for UMBC," Monroe said. "The future is bright, not only with Shawn and Adrian but with Chris De La Rosa, who I think can be one of the best guards in the league."

De La Rosa, a sophomore, sprained his ankle during practice the day before the team's quarterfinal game but still made his way out on the court, scoring 10 points and having six assists.

The Retrievers fell behind 13-2 in just four minutes and could not seem to get into a rhythm offensively. But the biggest problem may have been that the team was trying too hard, forcing shots and passes, and over-pursuing on defense.

"I think we wanted it so bad … I wanted to have them motivated, but not to a point where they would be so overly motivated where they couldn't get things developing from an offensive standpoint," Monroe said, adding that he felt blame because of his inability to settle the team down.

The team shot just 36.8 percent from the field and just 27.8 percent from three-point range. Of those missed shots, they were only able to corral nine offensive rebounds, and they lost the rebounding battle to UVM, 46-35.

"They always have a good defense," said Matt Spadafora. "Even if you get by a guy, they have [Marqus Blakely] standing in the middle ready to block your shot."

As a fifth year senior who had a lot of success in his first three seasons, including two trips to the America East Conference championship game, one of which he won as a sophomore, Spadafora led by example and was looked up to by the freshman.

"It was tremendous [to play with Spadafora]," Grant said. "To have somebody who's been through so much ... the ups and downs, somebody who's been to the NCAA tournament, he didn't let us get down on ourselves after a few losses."

Spadafora, who played his final career game, was unable to score in the game and only grabbed two rebounds, but was playing with an injured wrist and was used primarily as a defensive player.

But even with his defensive awareness on the court, UVM had three players score in double figures: Maurice Joseph scored 19, Blakely scored 18, and Evan Fjeld scored 10 points and grabbed 10 rebounds.

During the game it was Satchell's job to go head-to-head against either Blakely, the three-time AEC Defensive Player of the Year and two-time AEC Player of the Year, or Fjeld, both of whom were all-conference players this year.

"It was real physical," he said. "They are both great rebounders and great players. As a need for myself I need to get stronger. They played hard, I played hard, but they came out on top."

Despite being down by as many as 24 points in the second half, UMBC never gave up. They were able to control the tempo of the game on a few occasions and made easy layups inside when that happened, but for UMBC it was too little, too late.

"When things aren't going well they have a tendency to give up, quit, and make excuses and point fingers…[but] can you muster up enough energy and passion and enthusiasm for your young men to continue to fight and give everything they have. I think this team has done a tremendous job at that," Monroe said.

With just a 4-26 record to show for this season, it has certainly been one for UMBC to forget, but with the development of several young players, UMBC looks to have a lot of potential for the upcoming seasons.