ORONO – The marquee matchup in Saturday’s America East game between Maine and Binghamton University was Justin Rowe vs. Nick Billings, the league’s top two centers.

A duel between two 7-footers is hard to overshadow, but a 6-2 junior point guard from Immokalee, Fla., may have done just that at Alfond Arena Saturday afternoon.

Junior college transfer Eric Dobson played a near flawless game offensively and defensively while leading the Black Bears to an impressive 79-64 victory over the Bearcats.

“We’ve watched Dobson on tape and I’m going to make a guess that he played the best basketball game of his career,” said Bearcats coach Al Walker. “He played very, very well.”

Dobson shot 58.3 percent from the field for 14 points, dished out seven assists with no turnovers, and grabbed a team-high seven rebounds. Defensively, he had a steal and a block. More importantly, he teamed with senior guard Derrick Jackson to continually dog BU star guard Anthony Green, who scored a game-high 21 points, but did so on 7-for-18 (38.9 percent) shooting.

“Dobson was better than good; perhaps even great,” said head coach John Giannini, whose Bears improved to 8-9 overall and 3-2 in the conference. “Even though Green put up some pretty good numbers, I thought when the game was on the line, Dobson did a great job defending him.”

Green was held to one basket and one foul shot in the game’s final 14 minutes.

“I was just trying to make it hard for him by beating him to the spot and making him shoot over me,” Dobson said. “I’ve got a good three inches over him, so I just tried to use it.”

Meanwhile, Rowe was winning the clash of titans as he finished with 19 points to Billings’ 10.

Maine’s senior center also had four blocks to Billings’ two, but ended up with a disappointing four rebounds while BU’s sophomore center had nine.

“That is so disappointing. I don’t know…. That’s just bad. There’s not more you can say about it,” Rowe said. “Four is horrible for 7-foot-1. Someday I’ll put together a whole game where I get eight blocks, 19 points, and maybe 12 rebounds, but today wasn’t the day.”

It was the day for a complete team effort as Maine outshot the 8-7 Bearcats 54.5 percent to 36.4, outrebounded them 36 to 34, and outshot them at the foul line 93.3 percent (14-for-15) to 63.6 (7-for-11). Even in the only category won by BU, Giannini and company had reason to smile as BU committed 13 turnovers to Maine’s 14 – the Bears’ second-lowest total this season and 51/2 fewer than their per-game average.

The game was tight with neither team leading by more than nine points until the last minute. Maine trailed for most of the first 23 minutes. Maine took its largest lead to that point (53-45) with 10:37 to play after Rowe hit a bank shot from the left block for his sixth straight point. The ‘Cats (3-2 AE record) scored six straight to answer, but Rowe hit two more free throws to make it 55-51 Maine with 8:12 left. After that, the guards led the way with 17 of Maine’s final 24 points.

With Maine leading 65-62 and 2:51 to play, Dobson drove low post into heavy traffic and laid a shot in. After a BU miss on the other end, Dobson scored again on an instant replay with 1:45 left. Binghamton then pressed and Maine spread the floor, forcing the ‘Cats to foul. The Bears went 8-for-8 from the line in the final minute to salt the game away and fuel a game-clinching 10-0 run.

“It was a tough, tough game to win,” said Giannini, who is now one win shy of 100 with Maine. “I’ll tell you what, some of the shots we made were extremely difficult. Those guys made some big-time plays against an awfully good defense today. Binghamton is the best defensive team in the league. ”

Maine freshman guard Kevin Reed canned four 3-pointers en route to 18 points. Before leaving the game just before halftime with a twisted ankle, senior forward Rickey White had 10 points and five boards.

Sebastian Hermenier came off the Binghamton bench for 11 points.

BLACK BEARS 79, BEARCATS 64

Binghamton (8-7) Maine (8-9)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Baker 1 6 0 0 2 Dobson 7 12 14

Carter 3 5 0 0 8 Reed 6 12 18

St. Fort 3 5 1 2 7 Jackson 2 6 8

Green 7 18 3 4 21 White 5 6 10

Billings 4 13 2 2 10 Rowe 7 11 19

Hermenier 4 9 1 1 11 Petkus 0 1 0

Ocitti 1 2 0 0 3 Hill 0 1 0

Watson 0 1 0 0 0 Leavitt 0 0 2

Karis 0 0 0 0 0 Campbell 0 0

Williams 0 4 0 0 0 Brown 3 6 8

White 1 3 0 2 2

Totals 24 66 7 11 64 30 55 14 15 79

Binghamton 33 64

Maine 35 79

3-pt. goals: Binghamton (9-27): Green 4-11, Carter 2-3, Hermenier 2-6, Ocitti 1-1, Williams 0-1, Watson 0-1, Billings 0-1, Baker 0-3; Maine (5-13): Reed 4-9, Jackson 1-1, Brown 0-1, Petkus 0-1, Hill 0-1

Attendance: 2,118