After blowing a 25-point lead in a two-point loss at Towson State on Thursday night, Winthrop College basketball coach Dan Kenney suspected his team was hexed.
"We'd lost leads in the final seconds, every imaginable way -- turnovers, missed free throws, dumb fouls, you name it," Kenney said. "We had lost 19 of 26 games in which we led at the half. I felt the only way we could shake the jinx and a choke tag was to win a real close game."
And that's exactly what the last-place Eagles did at the UMBC Fieldhouse yesterday, benefiting from a non-call by the officials in the closing seconds to nip the Retrievers, 64-63, in the Big South regular-season finale for both teams.
The frustrating loss ended UMBC's four-game winning streak and robbed the Retrievers (13-13, 10-6) of their first winning regular-season record since 1988-89, when they were 17-11.
The Retrievers, who will be seeded third in the Big South tournament at Liberty University next weekend, had rallied from a 63-55 deficit with 3:18 remaining to close to 64-63 on Tony Thompson's layup with 14 seconds left.
UMBC then chose to foul junior forward David McMahan in the backcourt after the clock had ticked off four more seconds. McMahan was shooting 87 percent from the foul line in conference play, but this time he missed, setting up the frantic finish.
The Retrievers rushed the ball downcourt, and sophomore forward Marc Lay missed an off-balance 15-foot jumper. Senior forward Artie Walker hustled to grab the rebound on the baseline. Surrounded by three defenders, he hurried a shot that bounced off the side of the rim as the buzzer sounded.
The UMBC bench, led by assistant coach Randy Monroe, screamed at the officials for not whistling a foul. But the officials were halfway to their dressing room while the protest continued.
"That last play didn't cost us this game," said UMBC coach Earl Hawkins. "Sure, you hope to get the call in that situation, but we had done enough things to ourselves to lose this game."
You could count the ways. The Retrievers shot 40 percent from the field compared with 50 percent for the Eagles, but several turnovers in the final minutes proved especially costly.
"We didn't shoot the ball well from the perimeter [5-for-18 from three-point range], and we didn't get a strong game inside from Pascal Fleury today, and no one else picked up the slack," said Hawkins.
Fleury, one of four seniors playing his final home game, managed only two free throws. Two fellow seniors -- Tony Thompson (15 points, 11 rebounds) and Walker (14 points, eight rebounds) -- were chiefly responsible for the Retrievers' second-half comeback.
Thompson and Walker were particularly effective in crashing the offensive boards for second-chance shots to offset poor shooting.
But the Eagles (7-19, 4-12), who snapped a seven-game losing streak, fought off repeated rallies by the Retrievers. After Winthrop built a 47-38 lead early in the second half, UMBC rallied behind Thompson and Walker to pull even at 50-50. The Eagles regrouped, to build the lead back to 63-55.