By: Corey Johns
Last year it was the big five leading UMBC to victory, and this year it is the big three, and they are proving to be just as good as UMBC is now 3-1 and the winner of the Tyler Ugolyn Columbia classic. Jay Greene, Darryl Proctor, and Richard Flemming carried UMBC over the weekend scoring 68% of the team’s points and grabbing 61% of the team’s rebounds and were all selected to the all-tournament team.
Greene, who was named the tournaments most valuable player, started the weekend off with a double-double, 10 points and 10 assists. And followed it up with an even bigger performance in the finals with 22 points, leading all scorers, and six rebounds and four assists. Meanwhile that performance came just over 24 hours after suffering a back injury that kept him out of the end of the last few minutes of the game against the Cougars, and being questionable for the finals.
“Jay is tough as nails,” said assistant coach Aki Thomas, “You just can’t say enough about his heart.”
Though Greene had a solid performance against the Cougars, they did not have an answer for Proctor. He recorded his first double-double of the season with 25 points and 11 boards, and carried it over to the finals with a 16 point and eight rebound performance.
“That’s what Darryl does,” Thomas said, “he’s a senior, a captain, a hard worker; he’s just being Darryl Proctor.”
Flemming was a nice surprise in the tournament. Though he scored in double figures in his premier against Morgan State he was still a question mark on the team because he did not perform up to expectations. But that proved to just be a transition game as he recorded a combined 23 points and 15 rebounds in the two games.
Against Quinnipiac the team dominated on the offensive end as the team knocked down 55.8% of their shots and all five starters scored in double-figures in the 76-71 win.
Beating the cougars was bigger than just a win on UMBC’s record. Quinnipiac already beat Hartford earlier this season and will later play three America East teams, giving UMBC a good read on where they stand in the conference.
The two games could not have been won more differently as the offense struggled against Columbia, but the defense lead them to a 66-52 win. The Retrievers only hit 40% of their shots but caused 14 turnovers, leading to 23 points, and the defense out rebounded the Lions offense 29-14.
“The defense kept up stable,” said Thomas, “When we’re not shooting the ball well we are hoping to get the defense to keep us in and eventually the balls will go in.”
The point of the tournament was to give UMBC a feel for how to play two games in two games much like in the America East tournament in March.
“It is our pre-America East tournament, tournament,” Coach Randy Monroe said, “We kept that in the back of our mind when scheduling this and want show the younger guys how to get ready for a tournament.”
Even though the team is now 3-1 there is still a major concern: depth. Even with Frank McKnight not making the trip to Columbia for an undisclosed reason, they are only playing one bench player, Chauncey Gilliam, for significant minutes and surprisingly Bakari Smith and Jake Wasco did not receive any minutes over the weekend and walk-on freshman Brett Burrier totaled four minutes in the two games. The worry is that down the stretch the team could fatigue, but then again that was the worry last season and it did not seem to matter.
With the first four games in the record books, the schedule does not get any easier. UMBC will hit the road to take on proven teams in George Washington and Pittsburgh, and long road trips to Nebraska and St. Louis. In the middle of those games they will host Toledo, local rival Towson, Central Connecticut State, and last year’s Patriot League winner, and this year’s favorite, American.
