FINAL SCORE: Vermont 78, Binghamton 64
BURLINGTON, Vt. – The Vermont men's basketball team guaranteed itself at least one additional home game this season using a strong second-half defensive effort to run past Binghamton, 78-64, at Patrick Gym. UVM improves to 16-12 and 8-5 in league play while the Bearcats fall to 6-20 and 3-10 in conference action.
 
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The win assures UVM of a home quarterfinal game as one of the top-four seeds heading into the America East Playoffs in two weeks. Ticket information for that game will be released by the end of the week.
 
Cam Ward led the way for the Catamounts scoring a team-high 16 points on 6-of-10 shooting. Ernie Duncan and Nate Rohrer both pumped in 14 points while Kurt Steidl chipped in with 10 points and eight rebounds.
 
The Catamount reserves outscored their Binghamton counterparts 38-7 and for the third straight game, UVM shot over 50% from the field.
 
Willie Rodriguez scored 20 points to lead a pair of Bearcats in double-figures. Marlon Beck II scored 10 points in the losing effort.
 
Things started well for the Catamounts jumping out to a 12-4 lead just four minutes into the contest. Binghamton answered back with a 9-0 run capped by a Rodriguez dunk to take a 13-12 lead with 14:01 to play in the first half.
 
A second 9-0 Bearcat run gave the visitors their biggest lead of the day (28-22) with 7:02 left in the half. A Trae Bell-Haynes slashing layup in transition ended a nearly six-minute scoring drought for UVM and ignited a 15-4 run to close the half. Rohrer corralled a pass from Dre Wills is transition and rocked the rim with two hands before Duncan canned one of his four three-pointers as the buzzer sounded to polish off the spurt. Vermont led 37-32 at the break.
 
Binghamton found the groove offensively to start the second half and took a 47-46 lead after Rodriguez connected on his only trifecta of the day at the 13:18 mark. After Vermont took the lead back, Beck hit a three-pointer to cut the Catamount lead to one with ten minutes to go.
 
Ward caught fire over the next 2 ½ minutes, going on an 8-0 run by himself to put his team in front by nine. Vermont clamped down defensively over the final ten minutes of the contest holding Binghamton to just 3-of-10 from the field on its way to a seventh straight home win over the Bearcats.
 
Vermont heads back out on the road for its next contest – a matchup with the UMBC Retrievers down in Baltimore. Tipoff is at 7 p.m. and all the action can be seen via a free HD stream on AmericaEast.TV. Local radio coverage begins at 6:30 with AJ Kanell and Bernie Cieplicki on the call.