LOWELL, Mass. — Blondeau Tchoukuiegno scored 19 points, making three 3-pointers, as New Hampshire edged past UMass Lowell 69-67 on Saturday to close the regular season.
Jayden Martinez threw down a dunk with 20 seconds left to beat the River Hawks’ full-court press and Nick Johnson made a free throw at the five second mark as New Hampshire held on. UMass Lowell cut a seven-point Wildcats lead to 68-67 on a Kalil Thomas 3-pointer with five seconds to go.
The Wildcats locked up the third seed in the America East Conference and will host a playoff pod with the No. 6 and No. 7 seeds next weekend.
Johnson had 13 points and seven rebounds for New Hampshire (10-8, 9-6 America East Conference). Nick Guadarrama added 13 points and three blocks. Qon Murphy had 10 points.
Connor Withers had 16 points for the River Hawks (8-11, 7-8). Allin Blunt added 14 points. Thomas had 12 points. Thanks to schedule disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the River Hawks were playing their first home game in 40 days (Jan. 10 against Hartford).
New Hampshire defeated UMass Lowell 74-63 on Feb. 6.
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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights, http://www.automatedinsights.com/ap, using data from STATS LLC, https://www.stats.com
