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ORONO – The book on the Maine men’s basketball team in the season’s first three games has been a short and simple one. The Bears turn the ball over. They don’t make free throws. And they’re struggling to find themselves.
Delaware State apparently read the book. And the Bears are still lost.
The Hornets pressed the Black Bears to death in the second half, forced turnovers … and watched UMaine miss seven straight free throws down the stretch en route to a come-from-behind 60-52 win in front of 1,405 fans at Alfond Arena Tuesday night.
Delaware State allowed the Bears to score only 16 points in the second half.
An angry and frustrated UMaine coach John Giannini unleashed a torrent of criticism on his team during the postgame press conference.
“To say that I am surprised or disappointed would be an enormous understatement. This team has no idea how to win a basketball game. They have no idea how to handle a press and not turn the ball over. They can not get a rebound or a loose ball when the game is on the line,” Giannini said.
“Turning the ball over 25 times in a game and giving up 16 offensive rebounds in a game and having your supposed best rebounders [Justin Rowe and Clayton Brown] get three rebounds in 65 minutes just doesn’t work,” he said. “The only positive thing I can say is that we’re supposed to have a good team. The reason I’m upset, I’ve coached bad teams before and I was not surprised when they played poorly. I’m shocked that this team is playing as bad as it is.”
Maine drops to 0-4, starting a season with four straight losses for the first time since 1985, while Delaware State moves to 2-0.
Giannini was also upset that despite the Bears’ free throw woes (the team made only seven of 17 attempts on Tuesday and is shooting 51.4 percent on the season), none of his players have shown up early at practice or stayed late to take more shots from the line.
The Black Bears shot 66.7 percent from the floor in the first half and led 36-28 at the break. In the second half, Delaware State’s pesky defenders pressed from end line to end line, contested every pass, and made life miserable for UMaine.
Delaware State coach Greg Jackson said that after the Bears shot so well in the first half, he knew he’d have to change something. The press was the answer.
“We didn’t have a choice. Looking at this team, they’re so big and we’re not so big,” Jackson said. “We could not afford to let them get down into a halfcourt set and execute because they’re so big.”
The Bears spread the turnover bug around, as Rowe committed seven while Brown and Derrick Jackson coughed the ball up five times apiece.
The Hornets aren’t typically a pressing team, but Greg Jackson said that after looking at personnel, he figured his team could do so against Maine.
“We found out that they didn’t have but one or two ballhandlers, so we wanted to take them away and make other players have to beat us.”
Delaware State trailed 46-39 with 11:51 to play, but held the Black Bears to two points over the next six minutes en route to a 49-48 lead.
The Black Bears scored six points over the final 11:51 and gave up a game-ending 21-6 run.
Marty Bailey scored 18, Andre Matthews added 14, and Miles Davis scored 12 for the Hornets.
Brown scored 12 points for UMaine, but didn’t pull down a rebound in 31 minutes. The 7-foot Rowe scored 10 and blocked four shots for Maine, but only grabbed three boards in 34 minutes.
Giannini did not let players attend the postgame press conference. But he had an excuse he thought was a good one.
“If they interview as bad as they play, it will just screw up the article,” Giannini said.
In the first half, the Black Bears shot the lights out, connecting on 12 of 18 shots (including a torrid 6-for-9 effort from behind the 3-point arc).
HORNETS 60, BLACK BEARS 52
Delaware State (2-0) Maine (0-4)
Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP
Davis 5 9 0 0 12 Petkus 2 6 5
Dent 0 10 0 0 0 Greene 3 8 1 8
Bailey 6 13 2 2 18 Jackson 2 5 4
Matthews 6 11 2 5 14 Brown 4 8 12
Stephanenkov 4 9 0 0 8 Rowe 4 5 10
Walker 0 0 0 0 0 Flavin 1 1 3
Nathaniel 2 5 2 2 6 Tibbetts 0 0
Hightower 1 2 0 0 2 Dubois 1 2 4
Johnson 0 0 0 0 0 Campbell 0 0
Bowen 0 2 0 0 0 White 2 3 6
Sturdivant 0 1 0 0 0
James 0 0 0 0 0
Totals 24 62 6 9 60 19 38 17 52
Delaware State 28 60
Maine 36 52
3-pt. goals: Davis 2, Bailey 4; Petkus, Greene, Brown 4, Flavin
Attendance: 1,405
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