America East Basketball News: A Look at UMBC

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We begin our look at how teams in the America East are looking as summer camps for basketball begin. First up is the University of Maryland Baltimore County Retrievers who finished last season with an 18-14 record and got knocked out of the postseason tournament in the quarterfinals by Binghamton. Head Coach Jim Ferry has a big class heading to the program for next season. Five collegiate players along with four prep students arrived on campus to complete next year’s roster. According to the coach, the staff not only identified needs with this class but also added mature people to the program. Let’s take a look at the new faces on the UMBC basketball team.

From the college ranks, three guards and two forwards have been added. In the backcourt, some size has been added. 6-4 Bryce Johnson played 54 games with 29 starts over two seasons at Chicago State. He averaged 8.8 points, 3.5 rebounds while shooting 42.4 % from the field and 36.1% from deep. Last season, Johnson played in all 31 games for Chicago State and scored 20 points on three different occasions.

6-5 Marion Short played at little-known Stanislaus State in California where he averaged 15.3 points and 5.2 rebounds a season ago. He led his team in scoring and shot 46.8 % from the field. He had five games of 20+ points. He has good ball-hawking skills, 31 steals on the year, and shot 76.3 % from the free-throw line. Short will have two years remaining at UMBC.

6-3 Markus Banks played 30 games at Odessa Texas College where in 19.6 minutes a night, he scored 7.7 points with 2.5 boards. Before that, he spent one season at Western Carolina. The forwards are 6-8 Max Lorea- Lloyd who played three seasons at Penn out of the Ivy League. He made 43 appearances with 10 starts. Last season, he averaged 14 minutes a game in 28 appearances. He led the team with 34 blocked shots which was good for fourth in the league. After starting the first six games for the Quakers, he suffered a knee injury that would force him to miss the rest of the year.

6-8 Khydarius Smith played 109 games for South Carolina Upstate and 28 of those games were starts. In 15 starts a season ago, he averaged 18.6 minutes, averaging 7.8 points and 3.6 rebounds. He finished with double-digits in scoring on 13 different occasions.

From the prep ranks, 6-3 Anthony Valentine from Mount St. Joseph in Baltimore helped his team to an 80-14 record over three seasons. He was the main reason why his team won both the regular season and tournament titles. As a junior, he averaged 13.2 points, 5.5 assists, and 4.0 rebounds. 6-8 Marcel Gardner from St. Andrew’s Episcopal in Potomac MD. helped his team to an 80-28 record and a 37-12 region mark in his career. One year ago, the team went 24-7 and 9-1 in the region. He averaged 15.1 points, 7.3 boards, and 2.3 blocks a game.

6-5 Francis Emmou from Mansfield Summit in Texas is a guard who helped his basketball team make the state playoff for the first time in the program’s history. He averaged 14.1 points, 5.3 rebounds, 3.0 assists, and 1.1 steals a game. He was named First Team All-Region as well as First Team All-District.

6-5 swingman Alpha Chibamba from Phoenix Prep led his team to a 27-13 record and an appearance in the Grind Season Sweet 16. He averaged 14.3 points8.4 rebounds, 3.2 assists while shooting 56% from the floor and 38% from behind the arc. He was good at the free throw line at 81%. Chilbamba spent time with two other prep schools before landing at Phoenix Prep.

As the summer moves along we will take looks at other America East basketball teams as they prepare for the upcoming year.