Freshman Adrian Satchell led the team with 16 points, five rebounds, and shot 70% from the field. [Corey Johns- TRW]
Just two years ago UMBC and Hartford were battling it out in the RAC to claim the America East Conference championship, but how the mighty have fallen. The two conference foes met up for the first time this season, but not for a championship crown, this time it was to stay out of last place in the conference. Going into the game the teams had a combined 3-27 record, and were both severely struggling on the defensive end.
But in a close battle the youth and inexperience of the UMBC basketball team just wasn’t enough to beat the high powered Hawks offense which has four players scoring in double figures, hit eight three pointers and shot 44.4% from the field as UMBC lost the game, 74-68.
“You have to come out and pay with some energy, and enthusiasm, and some passion, and love for the game of basketball,” said coach Randy Monroe. “Hartford was not going to come down and give us a win and until you play with an attitude you’re not going to beat teams you need to beat.”
“We have to do a better job defensively,” Monroe said. “We have to get key stops when we need to get them and that’s been our Achilles’ heal as well as rebounding.”
UMBC was out-rebounded 33-26 and 19-8 on shots they took. They forced Hartford to turn the ball over just nine times, and allowed Hartford to score 15 second chance points.
With the continuous struggles for UMBC this season Monroe has started to adjust his player rotation and even starting lineup in recent games to attempt get a spark out of the team. The most notable change has been Jake Wasco, who made his second straight start over Robbie Jackson. While he only scored two points, he hustled, grabbed four rebounds, dished out two assists, had two steals, and blocked a shot.
“Jake’s an aggressive kid [and] plays hard,” Monroe said. “I want Jackson to play hard like that too. [He] will play because he plays aggressive and he plays hard and he’ll get after it. He may not be the most gifted guy but he gives everything he has when he’s out there on the floor. He’s going to get those minutes until somebody proves they are worthy to get them.”
While the defense continued to struggle the offense continued to score enough to win games. Four Retrievers scored in double figures, lead by freshman Adrian Satchell, who scored 16 points while shooting 70% from the field (7-10) and added five rebounds. Chris De La Rosa scored 12 points and Matt Spadafora and Shawn Grant each added 10 points.
“The offense is fine,” Monroe said. “Sixty-eight points is enough to win a college basketball game. We had out chances but we need an attitude, a swagger about us. There’s got to be a toughness factor that we need to compete and we just don’t have that.”
With 13 more games left the team is guaranteed a losing record during the regular season, but all of those games left are against conference opponents, which means the season is far from over, but in order to win Monroe said the team has to do a few simple things.
“We have to block out, we can’t give up second chance stops, and we have to get key stops when we need to get them. It’s not rocket science what we’re doing here but we played with no energy and no enthusiasm at all,” Monroe said.
