At times, the America East men’s basketball championship was not pretty. But as Bearcat junior Emanuel Mayben dribbled out the final seconds of Binghamton’s title game win, the result was beautiful to Bearcats Nation: Binghamton would finally be going dancing.

Behind senior Reggie Fuller’s 19 points and 10 rebounds, No. 1 Binghamton (23-8) defeated defending champion No. 6 University of Maryland, Baltimore County 61-51 to clinch the program’s first-ever NCAA tournament bid.

Fuller, who pulled down the final rebound of the game to seal the win, did it all for the Bearcats on Saturday. In the closing minutes he hit three free throws, grabbed several rebounds and drew a key charge on UMBC star forward Darryl Proctor with three minutes remaining and Binghamton clinging to a six-point lead.

The final minutes of the game were marked by sloppy play from both teams, with Binghamton failing to score a field goal in the final 8:16 and UMBC not scoring a point in the final 4:49.

Fuller did much of his damage in his masterful first half. He scored 14 points, including two dunks, and made two blocks. The high-flying blocks and dunks — a put back slam and a half-court alley-oop — all made “SportsCenter’s” highlight reel on ESPN.

“You can’t just talk about today when you talk about Reggie,” Mayben said. “You have to talk about all year, talk about before the season started, working hard in practice every day and letting us know that his senior leadership wasn’t necessarily going to be verbal all the time. It was going to be his effort, just his will to win.”

UMBC went on an 8-0 run in the second half to pull within two points, but the Bearcats responded with a 7-0 run of their own to end the first half up nine points. As time expired in the first half, Mayben hit a deep 3-pointer — a mirror image of the buzzer-beating 3-pointer he hit at the end of the first half against UMBC during the regular season finale.

Binghamton opened up the first half on a 5-0 run with a jumper from leading scorer D.J. Rivera and a 3-pointer from sophomore Chretien Lukusa. That prompted UMBC head coach Randy Monroe to call a timeout just 55 seconds into the half.

Emerging from the timeout, the Bearcats lost their offensive focus and took 11 3-pointers in the half, making just two. But Binghamton had success in the middle of the period when it forced the issue inside and Rivera scored two key layups to preserve a nine-point lead. Mayben scored Binghamton’s last field goal on a layup with 8:16 remaining in the game.

Rivera finished with 16 points on 7-of-15 shooting and five rebounds. Though he was named to the All-Conference second team by AE coaches upset with his NCAA hardship waiver, Rivera took home a more important honor: the Reggie Lewis Championship Most Outstanding Player award.

“He got the most important award today: tournament champions,” said BU head coach Kevin Broadus. “Individual awards, they sit on shelves and collect dust. He’s going down in Binghamton University’s history.”

Fuller, who was named to the All-Tournament team along with Rivera and Mayben, hit all seven of his shots in the game and all 13 of his shots in the tournament.

“At the end of the day, he’s the most important part to what we’ve got going on,” Mayben said. “Because if something happens to him, that’s rebounding, that’s the defensive presence, that’s scoring in the paint. It’s just a lot for us.”

Proctor, a Player of the Year candidate and All-Tournament selection, finished with a quiet 12 points and 11 rebounds, and never seemed to find his rhythm in the game.

Perhaps the most telling statistic was the 17 UMBC turnovers that Binghamton caused with its chaotic full-court press. The Retrievers were the second best team in the country protecting the ball, averaging just 9.5 turnovers. The Bearcats wreaked havoc in the passing lanes, causing UMBC’s point guard Jay Greene to cough the ball up a season-high five times.

“[It was] very uncharacteristic of us to turn the ball over,” Monroe said. “We were trying to do too much and we just needed to settle down. Once again, you have to give Binghamton credit for what they’ve done.”

Part of the Binghamton game plan was to make Greene as uncomfortable as possible. To that end, Broadus stuck 6-foot-5 Moussa Camara on the 5-foot-8 Greene, hoping Camara’s long arms would keep Greene out of sync and out of the paint.

“He wore down Jay Greene today with his length and his athleticism,” Broadus said. “I told the guys we’re staying with Moussa. They can be mad at me, but we’re staying with Moussa.”

“I think it was more self-inflicted, what we did to ourselves,” Greene said. “We were prepared, we knew they were going to mix up their defense. It just happened. They played a good game. You’ve got to give them credit.”

The largest crowd in Events Center history and second largest in AE championship history — 5,342 people — attended the game, billed as the most important sporting event in Binghamton history. Hundreds more gathered to watch the nationally televised game on ESPN2 in alumni viewing parties across the country. Binghamton fans were clad in white T-shirts provided by the athletic department and designed to give the Events Center a “white-out” look on television. As time trickled down on the game clock, hundreds of BU students stormed the court and hoisted Rivera on their shoulders.

“It’s an unbelievable feeling because I never would have imagined being in this spot right now,” Fuller said. “I can’t talk about the ride because the ride isn’t over yet.”

Binghamton’s win cemented a magical season that saw the Bearcats, picked to finish fifth in the preseason, overcome off-court distractions and early on-court disappointments. The school record 11-game winning streak prompted one BU fan to hold a sign reading “Season of Destiny.”

But for the man on the sidelines, fate did not play a part in the most exciting season of Binghamton’s athletic history.

“You have to make things be,” Broadus said. “Nothing is ‘meant to be.’”