The University of Maine men’s basketball team came up against one of the best teams in America East on Sunday afternoon putting forth one of its stronger efforts of the season.
While the Black Bears were competitive defensively, Stony Brook capitalized on UMaine turnovers and parlayed a 19-0 run early in the second half into a 73-52 victory in a mutual conference opener at the Cross Insurance Center.
“We got hot shooting it,” said first-year Stony Brook head coach Geno Ford of the game-deciding run, which came after UMaine had cut an 11-point halftime deficit to six points 2 1/2 minutes into the second half.
“We really hadn’t made many up until then but we played well today. That was one of our better games of the season.”
Stony Brook (10-6) entered the contest with the second-best defense in America East, yielding just 65.8 points per game during non-conference play.
With 6-foot-3 sophomore Miles Latimer anchoring a pressurizing perimeter defense, the Seawolves converted 22 UMaine turnovers into 31 points during a game in which they also amassed 10 slam dunks and 11 3-pointers.
“Our guard play was really disappointing today,” UMaine coach Richard Barron said. “A lot of credit goes to Stony Brook and especially Latimer, he’s a terrific defender. He bothered us and once he got into our heads we were done for.
“We had way too many turnovers that led to baskets and that was really the difference in the game.”
Redshirt junior guard Makale Foreman paced seniorless Stony Brook — which has an early season AE showdown at Vermont on Wednesday night — with 22 points, including a 6-for-12 effort from the 3-point arc.
Latimer added 14 points and four steals while 6-11 center Jeff Otchere contributed 11 points and nine rebounds and guard Elijah Olaniyi also scored 11 points.
Nedeljko Prijovic paced UMaine with 17 points while senior center Miks Antoms contributed eight points and a team-high seven rebounds.
“There were moments where we looked like I think we can play, just not enough of them,” said Barron, whose 4-11 Black Bears play Wednesday at New Hampshire (7-7, 0-1 AE).
Stony Brook came out forcing the issue defensively from the outset, particularly against UMaine senior point guard Sergio El Darwich and senior forward Andrew Fleming. That duo ended the day combining for 11 points, 10 rebounds, seven steals and eight turnovers.
“We were hoping our quickness could get them out of their sets, and I think we had pretty good success at that, especially in the second half,” Ford said. “I don’t know if tired legs played into that, but they’re going to win some games, for sure.”
Fleming sat out nine minutes of the opening half after drawing his second foul and was held scoreless as Stony Brook built a 35-24 lead at intermission. But it took the former Oxford Hills High School standout just 10 seconds of the second half to break his scoreless drought by driving to the basket for a left-handed slam on UMaine’s first possession.
A Prijovic jumper and a Fleming 3-pointer after a hard-won offensive rebound by Antoms closed the gap to 37-31 but Stony Brook answered with eight straight points. Five came within a 5-second span after a timeout as Olaniyi outhustled the field to a loose-ball rebound and raced in for a dunk and Andrew Garcia then stole the inbounding pass and fed Latimer for a 3-pointer to restore Stony Brook to a 45-31 cushion with 15:23 left.
A UMaine timeout didn’t slow the Seawolves as three more Black Bear turnovers helped extend the Stony Brook run to 19 unanswered points as Foreman buried three 3-pointers around a steal and layup by Garcia as the lead grew to 56-31 with 13 minutes left.
“[UMaine’s] got tremendous length, they’re the biggest team in the league, so we felt like it was going to be a hard game for us to drive it and just score at the rim,” Ford said. “It was going to have to be a drive, jump-stop, kick-out game and we didn’t make them early but we did make them in the second half.”
