BANGOR, Maine — Coach Bob Walsh felt as though Wednesday night’s game against Dartmouth College would provide the University of Maine with a chance to demonstrate the progress it has been showing lately in practice.
Instead, the Black Bears were unable to exhibit the defensive intensity and offensive execution they sought.
Dartmouth used an efficient and poised offensive effort to register a 79-69 men’s basketball victory over the Black Bears at the Cross Insurance Center.
“It’s my job to make sure what we do in practice translates to the games and that clearly didn’t happen tonight,” Walsh said, “so this is a tough one because you feel like you’re making steps, you’ve got a game where you can really make an impact and go out and prove it, and we didn’t play very well at all.”
The Big Green (3-3) won their second straight game by limiting UMaine’s quality looks near the basket and by shooting 49 percent (27-for-55) from the floor. They also made 19 of 26 free throws.
“Our intent was to really keep them from being able to penetrate and kick (for open perimeter shots),” said Dartmouth coach Paul Cormier.
The tactic was effective. The Black Bears (2-6) suffered their third consecutive setback while struggling through a 5-for-29 performance (17 percent) from the 3-point arc.
“I feel like we gave up a lot of good shots for great shots for 3’s, but also we took a lot of off-balance 3’s, rushed 3’s and 3’s where we probably could have gotten to the rim better or gotten better shots,” said UMaine freshman Ryan Bernstein.
The nonscholarship guard, known to his friends as “Boz,” paced UMaine with a career-high 13 points and dished out a game-leading eight assists to go with six rebounds and a steal.
Freshman Lavar Harewood hit three 3-pointers on his way to 12 points for the Bears, while sophomore guard Kevin Little and freshman forward Devine Eke (7 rebounds) each finished with 10 points.
Miles Wright led Dartmouth with a game-best 19 points and Evan Boudreaux churned out a double-double with 18 points and 13 rebounds. Connor Boehm contributed 14 points.
Dartmouth, which led 42-33 at the break, expanded its advantage with a 14-4 second-half spurt. Wright got it started with a free throw, Taylor Johnson knocked down a 3-pointer and Wright came up with a conventional three-point play to make it 56-39 with 12:27 to play.
UMaine countered as Eke scored off a pass from Garet Beal of Beals Island and Bernstein answered a close-range hoop by Dartmouth’s Tommy Carpenter with an eight-foot floater in the lane.
However, Carpenter fed Brandon McDonnell underneath on the front of a conventional three-point play and Taylor Johnson scored from the paint as the Big Green pushed the cushion to 63-43 with 10:26 left.
“I feel like we lacked composure on a lot of plays today and we lacked energy, effort and resilience when we got down,” Harewood offered.
Dartmouth also was able to negotiate UMaine’s relentless, 2-2-1 full-court pressure to get several open shots at the other end.
“At some points of the pressure, we applied really good pressure, we made them throw some bad passes,” Bernstein said, “then when they started to throw it over the top they started to get layups because we weren’t sprinting back.”