Eagles pull away from Bears Georgia Southern takes advantage of height edge in 2nd half

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ORONO – The record has them at 1-1, but the undermanned University of Maine men’s basketball team served notice that they could be better than advertised this season.

Of course, there’s still some work to be done.

After destroying the University of Maine-Fort Kent 118-61 Saturday afternoon, the Black Bears led by as many as 14 points in the first half of Sunday’s Maine Tip-Off Classic game against Georgia Southern University before the Eagles were able to exploit Maine’s lack of size and depth and post a 91-77 victory.

“This whole weekend will have good lessons for us. We’ll be fine,” said UM coach John Giannini. “We couldn’t use our normal system because of the lineup we had. [Saturday] night we could just overwhelm someone with our defense, but it’s hard to do that against a Georgia Southern, which needed to exploit our lack of depth and size and obviously did it.”

With all three starting frontcourt players and two other players serving three- or five-game suspensions for secondary NCAA rules violations, Maine’s starting lineup was three guards, a guard-forward, and a backup forward.

“We scouted their players all week and then all of a sudden, we had to change things,” said Eagles coach Jeff Price. “We might have been more prepared to play their whole team.”

After a first half in which Maine shot 8-for-15 from 3-point range with just a 46-40 halftime deficit, Price’s Eagles cranked up their transition game, increased defensive pressure, and exploited their frontcourt edge in the second.

The result was a 23-4 Eagles run in which five different players scored. It followed a 7-0 Maine run in the first three minutes and turned a 53-42 Bears lead into a 65-57 GSU lead with 101/2 minutes left.

“We just really wanted to be in transition and be relentless to make them have to run the floor both ways. We wanted to wear them down because we knew they were depleted,” said Price. “If you’ll notice, they got the big lead making the 3’s, then they got tired and we cut it to four. Then they got their wind at halftime and pushed it back up before getting tired again. I did not think those shots would continue to fall like they were early on. I mean, early, they were just on fire.”

Senior guard Julius Jenkins, who saw his first action this weekend after a three-day bout with tonsillitis, led a quartet of GSU double-digit scorers with 22 points.

“When we hit shots, that was a boost for us because everybody plays so much harder when the shots are going in and we’re playing good defense,” said Jenkins. “I think [the shooting] really opened things up a lot for us on the post, too.”

Maine cut the deficit to four points with 9:18 left, but never got closer than five the rest of the way.

Junior guard Eric Dobson led Maine with 22 points, seven boards, and six assists. Bangor’s Joe Campbell had 14 points.

“We just knew that if we were gonna win, we really had to box out and get rebounds, especially defensive rebounds,” said Dobson.

The Eagles outrebounded Maine by five in the first half and 46-35 overall. Turnovers were near even as GSU had 16 to Maine’s 19.

Bangor’s Joe Campbell scored 10 of his 14 points in the first half.

“We were a little fatigued, but it was the matchups that hurt us more, especially when we didn’t have David [Dubois] in there,” Campbell said.

Earlier Sunday, the UMFK Bengals got a 25-point effort from St. Agatha’s Chad Gervais to defeat the John Jay College (New York) Bloodhounds 93-77.

Also for UMFK, Vladimir Khazanovitch and Jose Frias had 15 points apiece while Stafford Bente added 11.

On Saturday, the Bears shot 58 percent (14-for-24) from 3-point range, outscored the Bengals 54-18 in the paint, and harassed UMFK into 30 turnovers to post the big win.

Seven of eight UM players scored in double figures as freshman guard Kevin Reed led the way with 30 points. Sophomore forward David Dubois had 13 points and 15 rebounds.

Bartas Samaitis of Lithuania led the Bengals with 25 points.

The other game saw Georgia Southern down John Jay 83-60.

Sunday’s early game

John Jay (0-2) 77

Palma 7-0-14, White 8-3-21, Djokic 4-0-9, Barry 6-2-14, Polanco 6-1-13, Williams, Ruiz, Shekla, Potts 2-0-4, Stanley 1-0-2

UM-Fort Kent (2-2) 93

Frias 7-1-15, Clavette 3-0-8, Alarcon 1-0-2, Samaitis 3-0-6, Bente 5-0-11, Khazanovitch 7-1-15, Gervais 9-3-25, Veloso 1-2-5, Bourgoin 0-1-1, Platia, Henry 1-2-5

3-pt. goals: White 2, Djokic; Gervais 4, Clavette 2, Frias, Bente, Veloso, Henry

Halftime: UMFK 38-34

Saturday’s late game

John Jay 60

Palma, White 0-2-2, Djokic, Williams 5-4-16, Ruiz 3-1-7, Phillips 1-0-3, Potts 1-0-2, Corredor 2-4-8

Georgia Southern 83

Faulk 2-2-7, Jenkins 9-0-22, Williams 1-0-3, Bennett 6-0-12, Joseph 5-1-11, Olivier 1-1-3, Mobley 0-4-4, Gibson 1-1-4, Francois 3-3-9, Puckett, Berry, Byams 3-2-8

3-pt. goals: Williams 2, Phillips; Jenkins 4, Faulk, Williams, Gibson

Halftime: Georgia Southern 41-24

BLACK BEARS 118, BENGALS 61

UM-Fort Kent (1-2) Maine (1-0)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Frias 4 11 3 4 12 Dobson 5 8 13

Clavette 2 7 0 0 5 Reed 12 16 30

Alarcon 1 4 0 0 3 Hill 5 10 14

Samaitis 12 15 1 1 25 Dubois 5 7 13

Bente 3 6 0 0 6 Campbell 7 17

Khazanovitch 0 0 1 2 1 Petkus 5 13 12

Gervais 3 9 0 0 6 Leavitt 3 3 9

Veloso 0 2 0 2 0 Jackson 4 8 10

Bougoin 1 3 0 0 3

Platia 0 1 0 0 0

Henry 0 2 0 0 0

Totals 26 60 5 9 61 Totals 46 74 12 21 118

UM-Fort Kent 25 61

Maine 55 118

3-pt. goals: Frias, Clavette, Alarcon, Bourgoin; Reed 6, Hill 4, Leavitt 3, Campbell

EAGLES 91, BLACK BEARS 77

(Sunday’s Game)

Georgia Southern (2-0) Maine (1-1)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Faulk 0 2 0 0 0 Dobson 8 17 22

Jenkins 7 14 5 5 22 Reed 2 9 8

Williams 6 15 0 0 16 Hill 3 6 8

Bennett 8 11 3 3 19 Dubois 3 5 8

Joseph 0 1 0 0 0 Campbell 5 11 2 4 14

Oliver 2 5 0 0 4 Petkus 2 7 8

Mobley 2 5 2 2 6 Jackson 3 8 9

Gibson 3 10 0 0 8

Francois 7 12 0 0 14

Berry 1 2 0 0 2

Totals 36 77 10 10 91 Totals 26 63 15 20 77

3-pt. goals: Georgia Southern (9-23): Williams 4-11, Jenkins 3-6, Gibson 2-3; Maine (10-30): Dobson 3-7, Hill 2-4, Campbell 2-7, Jackson 1-3, Petkus 1-4, Reed 1-5

Halftime: Maine 46-40

Attendance: 1,456