By Jim Fenton, The Enterprise (Brockton)
BRIDGEWATER, Mass. -- For the first time in a decade, the Bridgewater State University men’s basketball team has finished a season below .500.
The Bears were eliminated from the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference tournament in the quarterfinal round on Tuesday night, leaving them with an 11-14 record.
Fourth-seeded BSU, which struggled with consistency throughout the season, was stopped by fifth-seeded Fitchburg State University, 63-60, at the Tinsley Center. It marks the first time since going 11-15 in the 2002-03 season that the Bears wound up with a losing record.
“I didn’t know if we could win the championship, but I thought we could compete for it,’’ said BSU coach Joe Farroba, whose team had appeared in the MASCAC title game the past four years, winning three times. “We didn’t reach our expectations. I know that. We could have done better.
“I would have liked to get by this game. As bad as it was, here we were with a playoff game in our own gym and a chance to advance to play the top dog (No. 1 seed Westfield State), and we still couldn’t do it. That’s the disappointing thing. It’s just frustrating.’’
The Bears and the Falcons (14-10) split their regular season games and played a close quarterfinal-round game with neither team leading by more than six points.
Fitchburg State trailed only once in the second half at 43-42 when Brendan Monteiro of Brockton (11 points, five rebounds) hit a jumper with 9:19 remaining, but the Falcons (who got 17 points and 14 rebounds from Zach Valliere) retook the lead just 17 seconds later.
The Bears were down, 50-47, with 6:25 to go after a layup by sophomore Michael Lofton (20 points, 13 rebounds for his 12th double-double), but Brandon Selby converted a difficult corner 3-pointer 25 seconds later to open a six-point lead.
A Lofton layup off a feed from point guard Shawn Yard of Brockton (10 points, five assists) got BSU within 59-58 with 1:03 left, but the Falcons went 4-for-4 from the foul line the rest of the way to hang on.
BSU had the ball after a timeout with 10 seconds left, but a challenged 3-pointer by Yard and another by Lofton were off the mark.
The Bears made only 35 percent of their shots, including 2 of 13 from 3-point range.
“The big thing is they executed real well,’’ said Farroba of Fitchburg State. “That kid (Shelby) hit a huge shot in the corner. That was a big shot, and we just didn’t execute when we needed to.
“(The inconsistency in the game) no question reflects who we were this year. We’d have a good game, a shaky game.
“When we did lose, you could look at turnovers. There was always some segment of the game, either we got outrebounded, we didn’t shoot foul shots, we might have turned the ball over a little too much.’’
BSU loses starters Yard, Anthony Fortes (12 points) and Brendan McDonald to graduation. Farroba will begin the 2013-14 season with 299 career victories.