Vermont 74 UMBC 50
Vermont bounced back and used a dominant second half to defeat UMBC on the road. The big news of the game was that the coaching staff lifted Isaiah Powell's redshirt. As I mentioned in my last post, they had to realize that they inaccurately assessed the team needs at the beginning of the season. Powell would have very clearly been a help in the last game because of his versatility on both offense and defense. I don't know how Powell feels about losing a half season of his career but kudos to the coaching staff for admitting their mistake. Powell was pretty good in this game especially considering it was his first action of the year. He scored 6 points and pulled down 7 rebounds while playing extended minutes. Now that is the good news. Unfortunately at the end of the game he rolled his ankle and looked to be in a significant amount of pain. Hopefully he is okay because I feel like that is the story of Vermont's season thus far. Just when they seem to be figuring things out and start heading in the right direction, something goes wrong and derails their progress. After a sluggish first half Vermont really found something in the second half. They had more energy and an edge that hasn't been as present over the last few weeks. The Cats received contributions from everyone and put 4 players in double figures. It was a true team win. Teams are absolutely selling out to stop Anthony Lamb and it is going to be important for Vermont to get contributions from the other guys just like they did in this game. Everett Duncan led the Cats with 15 points as he has been making a killing at the foul line recently. Stef was next up with 14. He has blossomed into an incredible player. He is in a stretch of games where he has been the Cats best player. Over the last 5 games Smith is averaging 21 points on 54% shooting from the floor. He has been particularly good during this stretch at both getting to and finishing at the rim as evidenced by shooting 67% on two point baskets. Overall the game was a great way to bounce back. It still feels like Vermont could put it into another gear if they could just get a stretch where the team remained fully healthy for consecutive games. Binghamton is up next which will be another good road test to see if the Cats can put a full 40 minutes together and take care of business.
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