UMass Boston was upset and eliminated from the Little East Conference Tournament Saturday on home court when the Keene State Owls held onto a crunch time 75-72 victory.
An impressive season led by two sophomores, Cameron Perkins and Raphel Laurent, has come to an end after a 16-10 campaign which tied for the most wins in a Beacons season since the 18-win 2005-06 season. It is the third time Head Coach Jason Harris has hit the 16 win mark — once in 2017-18 and again in 2019-20 — and it is his career high at UMass Boston.
It was Laurent who stood out for the Beacons against Keene State, notching a career-high 36 points along with a couple blocks, a steal and some huge rebounds down the stretch. It just wasn’t enough, especially on the glass — rebounds killed UMass Boston all night, as the Owls out-rebounded them by a whopping margin of 54-37 spearheaded by a 24-13 advantage on the offensive glass. It was a huge factor in how the Owls hoisted up 16 more shots than the Beacons.
It’s hard to win with that high of a shot disparity, and the three ball didn’t help. While Keene State’s field goal percentage was actually lower than UMass Boston’s, the Beacons nearly shot themselves out of the game from beyond the arc in the first half, going 2-13. After the threes were toned down, an old problem found its way back to the Beacons. They earned 32 free throws in the game — 11 more than the Owls — and only converted on 19 of them, missing out on 13 points at the line. UMass Boston was sixth in the LEC in free throw percentage this year, shooting 71%.
The LEC’s second leading scorer, only behind Laurent, Perkins was bottled up to just 10 points by Keene State, the lowest total of his career when playing at least 11 minutes. Perkins played all but two minutes on Friday, and was doubled for much of them.
Perkins, who played in the paint or inside the arc for the most part, never could get his shot going — he shot 5/14 overall and didn’t appear at the free throw line once.
For Keene State, it was junior guard Jordan Cooper who did the job, scoring 26 points including a couple crunch time drives down the lane for tough layups. He went 3/5 from deep, while the rest of the Owls combined shot 1/12 from distance.
UMass Boston carried eight seniors this season: Corrie Byrd, Connor Walden, Erik Donaldson, Marvel Vilmont, Hector Perez, Carson Meczywor, Fendi Francois and Clayton McLaren.
The Beacons will need to bolster their big man position in the offseason, not just as a reaction to the Owls outbounding them, but also as they lose a group of large seniors. UMass Boston will still likely retain a lot of talent, as five of their eight-man rotation who played on Friday are not part of the graduating class.
