But you still need to activate your account.
Sign in or Subscribe to view this content.
ORONO – With leading scorer and rebounder Francois Bouchard again sidelined by an ankle injury and back spasms, the University of Maine men’s basketball team had to find a way to pick up the slack in Saturday afternoon’s North Atlantic Conference game against Boston University at the Alfond Arena.
Junior forward Kenny Barnes and friends did just that. Barnes scored three of Maine’s final eight points in an 8-5 run, and the Black Bears held off the Terriers 74-71.
Maine is 13-8 overall, 6-3 in the NAC. BU fell to 9-12 and 2-7. Maine has won the last six meetings at home against BU.
“We couldn’t rely on just one person to fill the void, the whole team had to,” said the 6-foot-6 Barnes after scoring a season-high 20 points. “Every player had to come through. Everybody had to come up with an extra two points.”
“It was a total team effort,” said senior center Ed Jones. “A couple of us got into foul trouble, but the other guys came in and picked up the slack.”
Sophomore forward Terry Hunt was one of those guys. He came off the bench to score 18 points, tying a personal best, and he shared the team high for rebounds with Jones with six.
“It was an excellent game for us considering the adversity we had to overcome,” said Maine coach Rudy Keeling. “There were a lot of questionable foul calls and Eddie and Casey (Arena) spent a lot of the first half on the bench with foul trouble. We had a good effort all the way around.”
“Because we’re a young team, we seem to make mistakes that haunt us,” said BU coach Bob Brown. “You aren’t going to win making 31 turnovers. We missed some easy shots and some foul shots down the stretch.”
Maine capitalized on its superior quickness and mixed up its defenses to force the Terriers into their 31 turnovers.
“That forced them to stop and look,” said Keeling. “On one occasion, they went into their press-breaker offense and we weren’t even pressing.”
Jones picked up his fourth foul with 17:15 left in the game but returned with 8:41 to go and broke a 66-66 tie to give Maine the lead forwith 8:41 to go and broke a 66-66 tie to give Maine the lead for good. Hunt stole a pass and went in for an uncontested layup to make it 70-66.
Tunji Awojobi’s slam pulled BU within two with 4:50 to go, but Hunt fed Barnes for an eight-foot baseline bank shot with 4 minutes left.
“We were trying to feed it to the baseline because that was open against their zone,” said Barnes. “I was also trying to draw a foul on that one.”
Dave Stiff missed an easy shot from the paint and Jones rebounded. On the ensuing possession, Barnes sank one of two free throws to make it 73-68 with 3:21 left.
Rick Rosu-Myles made one of two free throws with 2:24 left for BU and Maine’s Jones blocked an Awojobi shot.
Seconds later, Awojobi was fouled but he missed both with 1:46 left and Hunt grabbed the rebound.
A scramble for a loose ball resulted in a 35-second call on Maine with 55.7 seconds left but BU’s Danny Delgardo missed a three-pointer and Chris Collins rebounded for Maine.
Collins missed a free throw and Awojobi pulled BU within two by rolling a driving layup in off the rim with 21.4 seconds left.
Hursey was fouled with 11.3 seconds left and made one of two free throws, and Delgardo missed a potential game-tying three-pointer with two seconds left.
Arena finished with 14 points and five assists and Hursey had 12 to go with seven assists. Barnes had five rebounds and Jones had a game-high five steals.
David Wallace’s 17 points and five assists led BU. Stiff and Delgardo had 10 apiece and Stiff grabbed 10 rebounds. Awojobi finished with eight points and a game-high 17 rebounds. It was the first time freshman Awojobi had been held under 10 points this season.
Awojobi now has 220 rebounds, a BU freshman record.
Bears 74, Terriers 71
Boston University Maine
Name AG G AF F TP Name AG G AF F TP
Wallace 10 6 2 1 17 Hursey 12 4 4 2 12
Awojobi 8 4 4 0 8 Arena 11 4 4 4 14
Byrd 4 2 0 0 4 Schmidt 0 0 0 0 0
Stiff 9 4 4 2 10 Hunt 12 7 2 2 18
Delayeffitte 3 2 4 3 7 E. Jones 8 2 3 1 5
Delgardo 7 3 5 4 10 Collins 3 1 3 0 2
Rosu-Myles 2 1 9 5 7 R. Jones 1 0 2 1 1
Schwartz 7 3 4 2 8 Barnes 17 9 4 3 20
Smith 3 1 0 0 2
Totals 50 25 31 17 71 Totals 67 28 22 12 74
Boston University 37 71
Maine 43 74
3-pt. goals: Boston University 4-9: Wallace 4-5, Byrd 0-2, Delgardo 0-2; Maine 6-17: Hursey 2-5, Arena 2-6, Hunt 2-6
Comments
comments for this post are closed