VESTAL, N.Y. - First-place Vermont (14-5, 4-0 America East) used a 21-6 early second-half run to pull away from Binghamton men's basketball (8-8, 0-3 AE) 82-62 Thursday night in front of 3,345 at the Events Center. It was BU's first home loss of the season (6-1).
The Bearcats trailed by just four at the break but the reigning conference champion Catamounts hit 20-of-29 shots in the second half (69%) to stretch their nation-leading conference win streak to 19. During the key run, which spanned 7+ minutes, BU misfired on 8-of-11 shots and Vermont capitalized.
Senior guard
Tymu Chenery paced BU with 16 points - 12 coming in the second half. Graduate guard
Symir Torrence added 11 points, seven assists and six rebounds. Torrence entered the game ranked fourth in the nation in assists (7.2). Graduate forward
Armon Harried pulled down a team-high 10 rebounds and chipped in eight points.
"We had too much miscommunication that led to easy layups tonight," head coach
Levell Sanders said. "They had some better effort plays than us in the first half and I thought we could've had a better result in that half and that would've made it a more interesting game. Vermont is a good offensive team so when you allow them to score easy baskets, it will come back to bite you. In the second half, they hit some shots and gained confidence and outplayed us from there. We have to be able to put a full game together. We have to cut down on our mistakes and be more consistent with our execution. Right now we have to get back up and get into the fight. Nobody is feeling sorry for us ... but everything we are doing or not doing is correctable."
In the first half, BU held a brief early lead and stayed within seven points the whole way, despite shooting just 36%. A three-pointer from freshman forward
Gavin Walsh and fast break layup from Chenery brough the Bearcats to within two, 29-27, with 1:46 left in the half. Vermont made two free throws in the closing seconds to take a 31-27 edge into halftime.
The tough opening stretch continues for the Bearcats as they will host unbeaten UMass Lowell on Saturday. It will mark BU's third top-3 opponent in the opening four games, based on the preseason poll.
