America East Basketball News & Notes: The Semifinals are Set

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Tonight the America East Basketball Conference moves to the semi-finals stage of their postseason tournament. Last Saturday the quarter-finals were played with the top four seeds advancing to tonight’s next stage. The #1 seed Vermont Catamounts will host #4 seed UNH Wildcats. The #2 seed UMass Lowell River Hawks hosts the #3 seed Bryant College Bulldogs. The two winners will advance to Saturday’s championship game at the higher seed court. Here is how last Saturday played out in America East.

Vermont hosted UAlbany at Patrick Gym. The Catamounts were short-handed missing three players that are key to the team’s success. The Great Danes were looking for their first win as a #8 seed in the past 20 years. UAlbany played a very good first half taking a 37-31 lead to the locker room. Guard, Sebastian Thomas of UAlbany, was a problem for Vermont all game long. He finished the game with 31 points on 11-of-16 shooting. In fact, the Great Danes shot 46.6% from the field for the game. A back-and-forth second half saw UAlbany take the lead with two minutes left in regulation. But the champs fought back, scoring six straight points with the dagger shot coming from TJ Long with 30 seconds left in the game. Long finished the game with 20 points and six rebounds. Vermont hit their free throws in the final seconds to escape with a 75-72 win.

They will meet the University of New Hampshire, who defeated Binghamton University 77-64 to advance on Saturday. The Wildcats received double-figure scoring from all five of their starters led by Senior Clarence Daniels who went for a double-double of 20 points and 14 rebounds. He was 8-of-10 from the free-throw line. The Wildcats relied heavily on their starters as they only got seven points off the bench. The Bearcats also used their starters almost exclusively with four of them finishing in double figures led by Tymn Chenery with 18 points and six rebounds. Turnovers played a role in this one. Binghamton committed 15 which the Wildcats turned into 20 points. UNH only turned the ball over 11 times for 4 Bearcats points.

Vermont and New Hampshire met twice during the regular season, with the Catamounts winning both games. For UNH, they are looking to make the championship game for the very first time.

The Bryant College Bulldogs hosted the Maine Black Bears on Saturday. The Bulldogs were missing a key member of their team. Earl Timberlake did not play on Saturday. It did not seem to matter as his production was replaced by Rafael Pinzon who went for 35 points on 14-of-20 from the field and 6-of-8 from 3-point land. The Bulldogs got a double-double from Daniel Rivers of 13 points and 15 rebounds. The Maine Black Bears just never shot the ball well. They were only 6-for-22 from three, and 32,2%, 19-of-59 from the field. Forward Peter Filipovinty is the only Black Bear in double figures with 16 points. Bryant outscored Maine in both halves to get the 84-58 win.

The UMass Lowell River Hawks took on the UMBC Retrievers at Costello Athletic Center on Saturday. The River Hawks got a monster game from Quinton Mincy with 27 points and 16 rebounds. He was one of six River Hawks in double figures in the 94-89 OT win. UMBC was led by the backcourt duo of Dino Brown (18 points) and Markus Banks (24 points). These two guys kept their team in the game with big shotmaking. Two things became the difference in this one. UMass Lowell had a 20-4 advantage in second chances points and outrebounded UMBC by a 56-32 margin. Despite that, the game had 14 ties and 13 lead changes.

UMass Lowell defeated Bryant in both regular season meetings this season in America East play.

A couple of great games await their fans tonight so hope you can check out what should be some great tournament basketball.

The two regular-season meetings went the way of Vermont.