The University of Maine men’s basketball team had little difficulty scoring Saturday, shooting 54.3 percent from the field during its 108-79 exhibition victory over Husson University before an announced crowd of 1,257 at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor.
But such preseason contests, particularly those matching a Division I program like the Black Bears against a competitive Division III team like Husson, are all about identifying areas of concern before the games start counting.
For a UMaine team that yielded 86.9 points per game while finishing with an 8-22 record last winter, those areas begin on the defensive end.
“We had a sizeable (53-34) lead at halftime and then we gave up 45 points in the second half,” said third-year UMaine coach Bob Walsh. “At times it was, ‘well it’s OK, we’re up big’ so we didn’t have the same level of intensity.
“I think that’s something any team has to focus on. We’ve got to have a 40-minute mentality.”
Ilker Er, a 6-foot-6 junior guard from Istanbul, Turkey, led six UMaine scorers in double figures with 17 points on 6-of-12 shooting from the field, including 3-of-5 from 3-point land in his debut with the Black Bears.
“I think we’re going to get better each day, and I think we need to get better defensively,” said Er. “We work on it every day so I think we’re going to surprise a lot of people this year.”
Freshman guard Danny Evans and senior forward Marko Pirovic each scored 13 points for the Black Bears, while junior guard Aaron Calixte (11 points, six assists and redshirt freshman center Vincent Eze contributed 10 points and five rebounds.
Dennis Ashley, a redshirt freshman guard, also scored 10 points while former Oxford Hills of South Paris high school star Andrew Fleming of South Paris chipped in eight points, six rebounds and three assists in 17 minutes in his first UMaine duty.
“Offensively I thought we were unselfish,” said Walsh, whose team had 22 assists on their 38 field goals and committed 16 turnovers. “We were playing with each other, we were playing for each other and I think that will be really important for our success.”
Senior guard Raheem Anderson paced Husson with a game-high 25 points on 9-of-22 shooting from the field, including 5-of-9 from beyond the arc.
Alonzo McCain added 14 points for the Eagles while Eli Itkin finished with 11 points and seven rebounds for coach Warren Caruso’s club, which is coming off a 21-7 season highlighted by winning the North Atlantic Conference championship and earning an NCAA Division III tournament berth.
UMaine worked the ball inside while scoring the game’s first nine points, and the Black Bears extended their lead to 33-13 midway through the half after back-to-back 3 pointers by Pirovic and Evans.
Husson then buried four straight 3-pointers for a 12-0 run that narrowed the Eagles’ deficit to 33-25, but Eze, Calixte and Fleming all connected from the interior as UMaine surged back toward its 19-point halftime advantage.
UMaine’s lead eventually grew to as many as 29 points, the first time on a Garet Beal free throw with 6:04 left in the game.
UMaine continues its preseason schedule next Saturday against UMaine-Fort Kent at Memorial Gymnasium in Orono. Game time is 30 minutes after the UMaine-Villanova football game, or approximately 3:30 p.m.
The Black Bears open the regular season at Virginia Tech on Nov. 11.
Husson begins its regular season Nov. 17 at Newman Gymnasium on the Bangor campus against in-state rival Saint Joseph’s College of Standish.
