Vermont basketball scored the first 10 points of Saturday afternoon’s America East contest vs Maryland-Baltimore County. The Catamounts played with energy, turned over UMBC and hummed on offense, from transition to perimeter shooting.

In an instant, though, it fall apart for the Catamounts.

And the humbling result? Vermont suffered its widest margin of defeat at home of coach John Becker’s 14-year tenure.

UMBC took control with its own big run and then cruised in the second half, riding red-hot shooting, to seize an 80-63 victory over the Catamounts in front of 2,537 at Patrick Gym.

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The Retrievers outscored the Catamounts 44-18 over the final 17:49 of the first half for a 44-28 halftime advantage. UMBC (11-10, 3-3), which shot 57.7% from the field including 60.9% in the second stanza, led by as many as 23 points, scored 40 points in the paint and cashed in on 14 Vermont turnovers for 23 points.

The loss was also Vermont’s first home conference setback since the 2020-21 season. It was also the biggest defeat to a league opponent on its home floor since 2019, also to UMBC. The Catamounts drop to 11-10, 4-2.

“We really struggled for the last 30 minutes of the game. I obviously have to do a better job of getting our guys turned around and ready to play,” said Becker, alluding to Thursday’s win over NJIT when the Cats nearly gave up a big lead. “We will continue to try and do the best we can. It was a tough, tough loss at home and we obviously haven’t experienced a lot of these in the last decade or so.”

Saturday’s defeat was their seventh by double digits this winter for the three-time reigning America East tournament champions.

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“We’ve had a lot of these 20-plus point losses. Do you throw them away? The first couple maybe … but that ship has kind of sailed,” Becker said. “We are who we are and we have to decide if we want to change that. I thought UMBC played harder than us, played with more desperation.”

After Nick Fiorillo’s putback pushed the Cats to a 10-0 margin, UMBC got rolling behind its big three of Bryce Johnson (26 points), Josh Odunowo (19 points, 10 rebounds) and Marcus Banks (14 points). The 30th highest-scoring offense in the country at 82.4 points per game, UMBC took its first lead, 19-17, on Ciunys Regimantas’ 3-pointer with 10:40 to play before the break.

To close the opening 20 minutes, the Retrievers uncorked an 8-0 spurt, highlighted by Johnson catching Vermont asleep on defense for a driving finish early in the shot clock and Banks’ uncontested basket in transition following Sam Alamutu’s errant 3-point attempt in the final seconds of the half.

The Catamounts continue to play without key players due to injury. TJ Long, last year’s leading scorer, has played once since late November. TJ Hurley, this year’s top scorer, has missed the last two games with a lower-body injury and remains day-to-day, according to the school.

“We are a team that is short on bodies and short on certain skill sets and if we’re not playing with desperation for 40 minutes, it’s going to be a lot of games like this,” Becker said. “I don’t want to take anything away from UMBC, they kicked our butt today and they deserve the credit.”

Ayo-Faleye (14 points), Alamutu (12 points), Fiorillo (11 points) and Shamir Bogues (11 points) all reached double figures for the Catamounts, who play host to Maine on Thursday. Vermont finished 37.1% from the floor Saturday.

Contact Alex Abrami at aabrami@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter: @aabrami5.