Dunkley, Ammons propel Black Bears UMaine shakes off BU in quarterfinal

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NEWARK, Del. – With a minute and a half left in Saturday’s America East quarterfinal game, the University of Maine men’s basketball team had reeled off a 9-2 run, led Boston University by 10, and had seemingly clinched a berth in the tourney semifinals.

Seemingly.

BU sophomore Matt Turner temporarily changed the Black Bears’ plans as he scored 14 points over the final 1:14 of regulation time. That display of long-range shooting – combined with a 6-for-12 UMaine effort from the free throw line over the same span – sent the game to overtime.

In overtime, Turner scored six more points (he finished with 35), but the Black Bears responded by sinking 12 of 13 free throws, posting an 87-83 win over the Terriers, and – finally – earning that semifinal berth.

Maine coach John Giannini conceded the fact that missed free throws down the stretch nearly proved costly for the Bears, but he was satisfied with the defensive effort.

“Unless someone devises a defense to stop fadeaway 30-foot threes, which they made four of in the last two minutes, we didn’t do that bad,” Giannini said.

Top-seeded Hofstra defeated No. 4 Maine in a Sunday semifinal 78-66.

Julian Dunkley led the Bears with a 27-point, 13-rebound performance. Carvell Ammons added 14 points and eight rebounds, Huggy Dye scored 12, Tory Cavalieri notched 11 and Errick Green netted 10.

Jason Grochowalski scored 17 for the Terriers, Paul Seymour had 12 and Kevin Fitzgerald netted 11.

But even after the Bears had earned the win, much of the postgame discussion revolved around the 5-foot-9 Turner, who nearly single-handedly erased a 60-50 UMaine bulge over the final 1:14 of regulation.

The Terriers fouled on every UMaine possession, and as the league’s best free throw-shooting team struggled, Turner made the Bears pay.

He rained in back-to-back 3-pointers from the top of the key to make it 62-56 at the 1:00 mark, then hit two more 24-footers over the game’s final 30 seconds. The first made it 64-63, and after Derrick Jackson answered with two free throws with 28.6 seconds to play, Turner hit another bomb with 23 seconds to play to knot the score.

Cavalieri said Turner’s heroics had the Bears reeling.

“You don’t even know what to think,” Cavalieri said. “… I was just thinking that we have to get back on offense and make some plays. Just because they’re hitting them doesn’t mean we’re going to fold. We had to come back and answer.”

Cavalieri fired up the final shot of regulation, but his fadeway 19-footer from the left corner missed at the buzzer.

In overtime, the Bears found their answer against a pesky BU zone defense.

Dunkley staked the Bears to a lead on a conventional 3-point play at the 4:49 mark, then gave his team the lead for good when he converted a Cavalieri feed into a 3-pointer from the left wing with 1:56 to play. That made it 78-76, and the Bears made 9 of 10 free throws after that to ice the win.

Despite the loss to a team his squad had defeated twice during the regular season, BU coach Dennis Wolff had no complaints.

“In seven years [at BU], I’ve never had a team play harder than we did today,” said Wolff, who watched four the nine men he played foul out of the game.

The Bears attempted 53 free throws and made 39.

Giannini said he was impressed with the way the Bears played in overtime after losing that late lead.

“They had a shooting display unlike any I’ve seen for a long time. I don’t think you see that kind of shooting from deep range very often,” Giannini said.

“When you lose a 10-point lead in the last two minutes, there is no denying that it is deflating. You think you have the game won, and all of a sudden you don’t. And I give my players tremendous credit for having the resiliency and character to bounce back.”

Black Bears 87, Terriers 83

(Saturday Afternoon, Overtime)

Boston University (14-14) Maine (18-10)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG F AF TP

Grochowalski 6 10 3 4 17 Dunkley 8 12 27

Dhondt 0 3 4 4 4 Haynes 2 6 1 6

Rodriguez 1 1 2 2 4 Ammons 4 9 10 14

Fitzgerald 5 18 1 2 11 Cavalieri 1 10 11

Seymour 3 10 3 4 12 Greene 1 2 8 10 10

Graham 0 3 0 2 0 Jackson 1 1 5 7

Michalek 0 3 0 0 0 Dye 3 10 12

Turner 13 22 2 3 35

Daccarett 0 0 0 0 0

Totals 28 70 15 21 83 Totals 20 48 39 53 87

Boston University 32 66 83

Maine 33 66 87

3-pt. goals: BU (12-31): Grochowalski 2-4, Dhondt 0-1, Fitzgerald 0-1, Seymour 3-7, Michalek 0-3, Turner 7-15; Maine (8-25): Dunkley 4-6, Haynes 1-5, Cavalieri 0-5, Dye 3-9

Attendance: 3,770