UMBC men's basketball wins America East title to return to NCAA Tournament

Edward Lee, Baltimore Sun on Mar 14, 2026

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UMBC men’s basketball will be mired in the madness.

The Retrievers assured themselves of that fate when they defeated Vermont, 74-59, in the America East Tournament final Saturday afternoon before an announced 4,753 at the Chesapeake Employers Insurance Arena in Catonsville, Md.

UMBC (24-8), the No. 1 seed, extended its winning streak to a school-record 12 in a row, breaking a tie with the 1998-99 squad that won 11 consecutive games. More importantly, the team swept the league’s regular-season and tournament championships for the first time since the 2007-08 squad did the same. The 2017-18 group, which became the first No. 16 seed in NCAA Tournament history to knock off a No. 1 seed, captured the conference tournament crown but not the regular-season title.

The Retrievers now await their placement in the NCAA Tournament. The field will be announced Sunday evening, but coach Jim Ferry expressed his gratitude for what the team accomplished all winter.

“These guys put themselves in history books of UMBC forever and the America East with how they played, how they handled themselves, how they just kept growing and growing and growing and growing,” he said. “When I say we’ve got a special group here, every single one of these guys are going to be successful at whatever they want to do because of their commitment to others, and I’m just overwhelmed with happiness, but pride because these guys got everything they deserved.”

UMBC can thank DJ Armstrong for the extension to its season. The graduate student shooting guard scored a game- and career-high 33 points on 81.8% shooting (9 of 11), including 77.8% (7 of 9) from 3-point range. The output was the most in an America East Tournament final since Stony Brook’s Jameel Warney scored a league record-tying 43 points on March 12, 2016.

Armstrong, who was named the game’s Most Valuable Player, scored 20 points in the second half and drained three consecutive 3-pointers to help the Retrievers turn a 54-51 lead with less than five minutes remaining into a 64-56 advantage with 1:51 to go. He described his performance as “surreal.”

“I know what I need to do in order to get the win,” he said. “That’s pretty much what it was about – just find a way to win. All season, we’ve been finding ways. So that’s what we wanted to do.”

Catamounts coach John Becker pointed out that senior shooting guard TJ Hurley limited Armstrong to eight and nine points in two regular-season meetings. But because UMBC junior shooting guard Jah’Likai King scored 24 in the Retrievers’ 75-62 loss on Feb. 19, Becker switched Hurley from Armstrong.

Nonetheless, Becker credited Armstrong for being the most prominent catalyst.

“It was him, and he’s done it all year,” he said. “He just has a knack for making big shots. [If] you just guard him out to 30 feet, he just starts dribbling back to 35 feet at some point. You’ve got to live with that.”

Armstrong was aided by junior point guard Ace Valentine, who amassed 13 points, four assists and three rebounds. UMBC was particularly opportunistic at the free-throw line, where the offense converted 22 of 26 attempts, including 10 of 10 in the last 90 seconds when the Catamounts kept fouling to stop the clock.

Graduate student shooting guard TJ Long paced Vermont (22-12) with 17 points, four rebounds and two steals, redshirt sophomore power forward Gus Yelden compiled 11 points and five rebounds, and senior shooting guard Hurley added 11 points and two rebounds.

Yelden, who scored 10 points on 50.0% shooting (5 of 10) in the first half, was limited to a single point and 0.0% (0 of 3) in the second as the Retrievers concentrated on limiting the 6-foot-9, 280-pound post player’s chances.

The Catamounts were denied their fourth tournament championship in the last five years and their sixth in the last eight. Still, Ferry said the Retrievers welcomed a shot at proving themselves against the opponent that has set the standard in the America East.

“We wanted to play Vermont because to be the best, you’ve got to beat the best,” he said. “And we did that. We talked about it earlier in the year. We said it’s going to come down to us two, and it did. So obviously, tremendous amount of respect for Vermont, Coach Becker, all those guys. With that said, we did it, man.”