In two games four days apart last week, UMBC's Jay Greene made a statement that is certain to reverberate across the America East Conference.
The diminutive point guard took decidedly different paths to two conference victories and came up huge each time. He took only three shots and scored just six points in a four-point win over Albany on Wednesday. On Saturday, when leading scorer Brian Hodges was sidelined by injury, Greene scored a career-high 26 points in a two-point decision at Vermont.
The common denominator: one turnover spread over 40 minutes in each game. Albany coach Will Brown was effusive about Greene's role Wednesday.
"He's not [the listed] 5-8, he's 5-6," Brown said. "[But] he's the heart and soul of the team. He's so quick. ... That's the best point guard in our league."
Only Greene and Darryl Proctor have started all 22 games for UMBC (15-7, 7-2) this season. While Proctor powers his way inside, Greene is part magician on the perimeter. He averages 35.6 minutes, seven assists and nine points. His assist-to-turnover ratio of 3.4 is tied for second best in the nation.
Junior college
Cecil College defeated Hagerstown Community College, 98-90, on Saturday to run its winning streak over Maryland Junior College opponents to 70. The 20-0 Seahawks are ranked No. 1 in the National Junior College Athletic Association in a program that oozes success.
In the past four years of Bill Lewit's 13-year reign, the Seahawks have gone 117-8 and won an NJCAA title (2006). Since going 0-22 in his first season, Lewit has raised the bar to where he redshirts players and, he says, cuts 120 players in tryouts.
Among those who made it were former Parkville swingman Kevin Palmer (scoring 18 points a game); Rob Lowery (17 points) of McDonogh in southern Maryland; and Josh Bennett and Josiah Whitehead, who are holdovers from the championship team.
Women's basketball
When Danielle Anders' 20 points led the Coppin State women's team past Delaware State on Saturday, it marked the first time this season that neither Rashida Suber nor Shalamar Oakley held the honor. Before that, Suber and Oakley - both guards - teamed up for 165 of the team's 244 points in a three-game stretch.
Suber has scored 380 points (18.1 per) to Oakley's 378 (18), to help Coppin State (11-10, 6-2) to third place in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference.
Soccer
Maryland not only won the recruiting battle for Casey Townsend, a two-time Mr. Soccer in Michigan, but the Terps also get him for workouts in the spring. Townsend is ranked the No. 6 recruit in his class by Rise Magazine after scoring more than one goal a game in his career at Traverse City West High. He will be added to the roster after graduating from high school a semester early. He has enrolled at Maryland for the spring semester.
ken.murray@baltsun.com