Saturday was a day of contrasts for the Towson women’s and UMBC men’s basketball teams as they attempted to win conference championships and the automatic NCAA tournament bids that came with them.

The Tigers advanced to their first NCAA women’s tournament with a 53-49 victory over Drexel in the Colonial Athletic Association championship game in Newark, Del.

Meanwhile, the Retrievers, the Cinderella story of last year’s NCAA men’s tournament, had their postseason hopes dashed with by a 66-49 loss to Vermont in the America East title game in Burlington, Vt.

For Towson, Nukiya Mayo scored 20 points, Kionna Jeter added 10 and each drained a clutch jump shot in the final minute as the Tigers rallied late to defeat Drexel.

Bailey Greenberg, the CAA Player of the Year, led Drexel with 15 points, and a strong spin move down the lane for a bucket by Aubree Brown had the Dragons ahead 46-43 late. Four turnovers in the last 1:45 plagued Drexel (24-8), which has lost in the last four CAA title games.

Qierra Murray took a stolen pass to the hoop, bringing the Tigers to 46-45, Mayo knocked down a quick turnaround jumper and Towson led for the first time in the final quarter.

Drexel called timeout with 54.9 seconds left but Towson stole the inbounds pass. Jeter held the ball until the shot clock ran down and hit a step-back jumper off a high pick-and-roll.

Drexel was forced to foul and Mayo made four straight free throws in the final 11 seconds.

Drexel walloped Towson by 33 points in the regular-season finale a week ago.

After ending the conference season with three losses, the Tigers take a three-game winning streak into the program's first NCAA appearance.

With the win, the Tigers improved to 20-12 for just the second 20-win season in program history and first since 2007-08. CAA Coach of the Year Diane Richardson has led the team to an 11-win improvement in her second season at the helm and to its first league championship since it won the East Coast Conference in 1983-84.

America East men’s final: Vermont learned from its loss last year on its home floor to UMBC in the America East tournament title game — a result that paved the way for an even bigger win by UMBC.

“This year the script was flipped after a year ago,” UMBC coach Ryan Odom said. “Hats off to Vermont today. Our offense today left a lot to be desired — give them credit for a lot of that. [Anthony] Lamb had a dynamite game. He’s tremendous.”

Lamb scored 28 points to lead Vermont and earn an NCAA tournament bid.

It was the seventh conference title overall and second in three years for the Catamounts (27-6), who got their revenge on the anniversary of 16th-seeded UMBC's shocking upset of top-seeded Virginia in last year's NCAA tournament.

“I'm impressed how well we grew over the season and today was a full team effort,” Vermont coach John Becker said. “These games are surreal because of the crowd and noise. We were tougher this year because of that game. We had a lot of young guys, so credit our new leadership.”

Lamb, the America East Player of the Year, was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. He went 8-for-16 from the field and had nine rebounds, and he led a strong defensive effort from the Catamounts, who held the Retrievers to 34 percent shooting.

Stef Smith added 17 points for Vermont and Ben Shungu scored nine, all in the second half. K.J. Jackson led UMBC (21-13) with 15 points, and Arkel Lamar had eight points and 11 rebounds.

Lamb hit back-to-back 3-pointers early in the second half to start an 11-0 run that put Vermont ahead 39-22.

“The championship game a lot of times comes down to the best player playing like that,” Becker said. “I never wanted to put any extra pressure on Anthony, but the reality today is that our best player was a big reason we won.”

Both teams got off to slow starts. UMBC missed its first six field-goal attempts and hit only five of its first 16, while Vermont was 7-for-21, missing its first six 3-point attempts.

Lamb scored 12 of Vermont's first 18 points and had 19 by halftime, when the Catamounts led 28-20.