By Sarah Moomaw, News Staff
In a game that had 14 lead changes, the men’s basketball team didn’t come out on top as they fell by three to the University of Maine Black Bears, 76-73, at the buzzer on Wednesday night to open a four game home stand.
“A little disappointed in our effort this evening,” head coach Bill Coen said after the game. “I thought Maine certainly deserved to win the basketball game. They executed, they made plays when they needed to.”
The Huskies already have two buzzer-beating wins this season and were looking for a third when sophomore forward Quincy Ford took the ball in the last possession of play.
The Huskies passed the ball around the inside of the arc before getting it in the hands of Ford for a three-pointer before the buzzer, but it hit the rim and bounced out as the backboard glowed red signaling the end of game.
“They kind of bodied him so he didn’t get free [right away],” Coen said. “I have no problem with the execution of the last play. We wanted either Joel [Smith] or Quincy, depending how they were guarded to get a look. We got a great look, unfortunately just didn’t make the shot.”
Maine dominated the shooting, finishing the game at 59 percent, while the Huskies only mustered up 41 percent, including getting off to a slow start by taking two minutes and 36 seconds to find the netting, cutting Maine’s early lead to three, 5-2.
The Huskies three-point deficit would be the largest of the half until they hit the locker room with a five-point margin over the Black Bears after 20 minutes of play. Getting the lead wasn’t easy, though, as the two benches traded the lead 11 times, drawing to seven ties.
At 14:30, a 6-0 run by the Huskies to tie the game at 26 was interrupted by a three-pointer from sophomore forward Zarko Valjarevic to take back the lead, 29-28. But, for the fifth time the lead returned to the Northeastern bench off a freshman forward/guard Zack Stahl layup from underneath the basket, 30-29.
Sophomore guard Demetrius Pollard gave the Huskies their five-point halftime lead with a three from the right side of court with 40 seconds on the clock. The Black Bears went looking for a buzzer-beater to end the half, but sophomore Kilian Cato missed the layup, for a halftime score of 40-35 Huskies.
Senior forward Joel Smith had 15 of his 19 points in the second half as he opened with a quick jumper to push the lead to seven, but the Black Bears fired back and tied the game at 42.
A nothing-but-net three from Smith broke a 44-all game. He then sunk a foul shot to push Northeastern’s lead to four, 50-46. Smith dunked to retie the game, this time at 52, and ended a 6-0 run by the Black Bears.
Another Smith ball from beyond the arc gave the Huskies a three-point advantage at 7:34, only to watch it be erased by a Black Bear 7-2 run after a media timeout, grabbing a 59-57 lead.
Sophomore guard Reggie Spencer came out of a Northeastern timeout and dunked through traffic to end a 9-0 Black Bear run, but two quick layups pushed Maine’s lead to their largest of the game at eight with 7:06 left in the half.
Smith turned over the ball to the game’s leading scorer Maine’s sophomore guard Justin Edwards (30 points), who went up for the layup.
“Obviously nothing worked too well, we tried a little bit of zone, we tried to force [Edwards] to shoot from the outside,” Coen said. “He did a good job of beating us off the dribble.”.
Smith drew a foul sending Edwards to the line for an 11-point lead with just under five minutes to play. Dueling two points pushed the double digit lead into the last media timeout of the game, 72-61.
Northeastern steam rolled through the last four minutes of the game, compiling a 12-4 run, seven from the free throw line.
The Huskies strength of the game was their foul shots, shooting 67.9 percent (19-28), including freshman guard David Walker going a perfect 5-5 and Ford hitting seven of eight.
The loss opens a four game home stand and drops the Huskies to 4-3 on the season. The Huskies will look to avoid falling to .500 on Tuesday night when they take on the Minutemen of University of Massachusetts at Matthews Arena. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m.
