Turner’s shot from halfcourt lifts Bears by UMBC at buzzer

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ORONO – He was nowhere near his shooting range, he didn’t have a clear shot, and there was no one to pass to.

There were also just two seconds left to do something before the buzzer sounded and the University of Maine men’s basketball team played its third overtime game of the season, so Maine senior guard Ernest Turner decided to take a shot.

Turner’s 3-point heave at the buzzer from just inside half-court and near the “M” at center court capped an improbable second-half rally by the Black Bears and gave Maine a 69-66 victory over University of Maryland Baltimore County. It also broke a seventh-place tie with UMBC.

“Nah, I wasn’t open. I didn’t think I had enough time to pass so I decided just to shoot it,” said Turner, who led a furious Maine comeback from a 20-point deficit with 23 points – 17 in the second half. “I tried to get enough air on it to at least give it a chance and it went in.”

Maine’s second straight comeback win improves its record to 11-15 overall and 6-9 in America East. With one game left, the Bears can clinch seventh place with a win Sunday. Maine is one game behind sixth-place Vermont.

The Bears clawed out a big hole for themselves in the first half, thanks to turnovers and a fast start by UMBC’s shooters, but they started climbing out of it with scalding 3-point shooting in the first eight minutes of the second half. The Bears canned six straight 3’s in the first 51/2 minutes and eight of their first 11 to come all the way back from a 20-point deficit 46 seconds into the second half.

Point guard Rashard Turner’s one-handed scoop on a drive to the left block tied the game at 51 with 9:22 left. It was the first time in the game that Maine hadn’t trailed.

“We were trying to penetrate and look for other guys to set up some shots,” said Rashard Turner, who scored 15 of his 17 points in the second half.

Ernest Turner’s running 3-pointer from the top of the key off a screen and one of Jon Sheets’ game-high six assists gave Maine its first lead of the game, 54-51, with 8:27 left. It was his fourth in as many attempts in the second half. A Chris Bruff hook shot from the left block with 6:32 to go made it 58-51 Bears and capped an 18-2 Maine scoring run over seven minutes.

UMBC retrieved some offensive spark and scored six straight over the next two minutes to make it 58-57, and neither team led by more than six the rest of the way. Maine then scored four straight to take a 66-60 lead with 2:06 left.

The Retrievers rallied and tied it with 2.6 seconds left after a 3-pointer from the right wing glanced off the rim into Mike Housman’s hands and he tipped it to the left wing, where Chris Pugh canned a 3-pointer from the left of the circle.

Maine called timeout, set up a play, and sent Sheets out to inbound the ball from the UMBC bench. He found Ernest Turner and Turner dribbled up the right side from three-quarters court, stepped over the line, and let fly a shot that hit the glass dead-center in the square and banked into the net at the buzzer.

Everything that could go wrong basically did for the Bears early on as they didn’t score in the first four minutes and watched as UMBC took leads of 10-0, 22-10 and 33-18.

“I didn’t get angry at them,” Maine coach Ted Woodward said, trying to explain the turnaround. “I just told them we played as bad as we possibly could have in all facets of the game and we just needed to refocus on playing between the timeouts, for four-minute stretches at a time, and see what happens.”

What happened was Maine committed six turnovers after 12 in the first and shot an eye-popping 78.6 percent from 3-point range and 62.1 percent overall in the second half.

BLACK BEARS 69, RETRIEVERS 66

UMBC (9-17) Maine (11-15)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Dinkins 7 13 3 6 19 Ahvnnimi 2 7

Zito 6 11 4 8 18 Tchkn Bfa 2 4 4

Housman 5 8 0 0 10 E. Turner 9 12 0 1 23

Greene 0 4 0 0 0 Sheets 2 7 6

Pugh 2 6 0 0 5 Petkus 1 7 0 3

Seaborn 1 2 0 0 2 R. Turner 7 17

Young 0 0 0 0 0 Bruff 2 6 6

Hodges 4 12 1 2 12 Hight 1 2 3

Totals 25 56 8 16 66 Totals 26 51 10 69

UMBC 36 66

Maine 20 69

3-pt. goals – UMBC (8-20): Hodges 3-7, Zito 2-2, Dinkins 2-6, Pugh 1-1, Greene 0-4; Maine (12-25): E. Turner 5-7, R. Turner 3-4, Sheets 2-5, Hight 1-2, Petkus 1-7

Attendance: 1,326