Previewing Today's America East Title Game Between Vermont/UMBC

America East Championship – 11:00 am
No. 2 UMBC at No. 1 Vermont – Burlington, Vermont

This is my favorite conference title game every single year. It kicks off one of the five best days in college basketball and this game always is entertaining. Back in the day you had Vermont/Albany games coming down the stretch. You had Jacob Iati hitting late threes for Albany at Vermont. You had the awesome story of Peter Hooley hitting a game-winning 3 over Stony Brook. Then you had Jameel Warney leading a comeback for Stony Brook over Vermont a couple years ago. What I’m trying to say is this game never disappoints.

This year you have the Vermont dynasty of sorts trying for another win. The Catamounts have lost just one conference game the last two years – that loss came earlier this year to Hartford. Vermont obviously swept the season series against UMBC, winning by 15 and 28. So what can we expect in this game?

First off, UMBC has to find a way to slow down Vermont offensively. The Catamounts are a top-40 offensive team in the country and they do it by playing a slower pace. Vermont doesn’t want to get out and run. They sit back, run its offense and find the weak spot. Late in the shot clock they let Trae Bell-Haynes cook and operate off the bounce. Throw in the fact Anthony Lamb is now back from an injury that sidelined him for most of the year and you have two guys who can go get their own bucket. Vermont can beat you from three, but that’s not its game. They do shoot the ball well, but don’t get up a whole lot of threes, shooting them on just 36.5% of field goal attempts. However, UMBC is one of the worst 3-point defensive teams in the country. The Retrievers give up shots behind the arc on over 41% of field goal attempts while letting teams shoot 35.7% from behind the arc. This could be a huge opening for guys like Payton Henson, Ernie Duncan and Everett Duncan – who all shoot over 39% from three. Hell, Vermont is the 11th best 3-point shooting team in the country.

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For UMBC on offense it all runs through Jarius Lyles. The 6’2″ senior, who spent a year at VCU, is averaging just under 20 per game while also grabbing over 5 rebounds and 3 assists per game. Lyles plays over 80% of the minutes for UMBC and gets the ball in his hands quite a bit. What makes him special though is he does an excellent job of drawing fouls while not committing fouls. If he can get cooking tomorrow and gets some early fouls driving into the lane, UMBC has a chance here.

That said, I like Vermont to win this game at home. This has been not only one of the best mid majors in the country, but just one of the most consistent teams regardless of classification. They’ve consistently been in the top-60/70 on KenPom and pushed Kentucky, Marquette, Bucknell and St. Bonaventure to games all within 10 points. All of those games were also on the road. John Becker’s crew gets it done.