ORONO – They almost broke the scoreboard.

The University of Maine men’s basketball team enjoyed a triumphant return to Memorial Gymnasium and showed why it earned the nickname “The Pit” from opposing teams as the Bears mauled the University of New England Nor’easters 99-50 Friday night.

In the first varsity basketball game to be played at The Pit in almost 12 years, senior forward Mark Flavin led a balanced Black Bears attack with 26 points as the Bears came within a point of overloading the two-digit team scoring capacity of the dated scoreboard.

The second game saw the Brown University Bears knock off University of Maine-Fort Kent 95-73.

In the opening game of the Maine Invitational Tournament, Flavin also posted a game-high 10 rebounds and three blocked shots.

“I knew I had an advantage with their tallest guy being 6-5,” said the 6-foot-10 Flavin. “Coach just stressed getting low on them and getting better position around the basket.”

The Bears, now 2-1, dominated the lane with 38 points from the paint to UNE’s 10. Maine also controlled the boards with a 34-14 defensive and 51-28 overall advantage.

Maine’s deep guard corps, which has been thinned by recent injuries to senior captain Ludmil “Udo” Hadjisotirov (ankle sprain) and junior swingman Jermaine Jackson (knee), played well as sophomore Kevin Reed had 14 points and eight rebounds. Senior guard Jon Wallingford of Auburn scored 12 points off the bench while junior Freddy Petkus contributed nine and freshman Chris Bruff had eight.

“The more I play, the more comfortable I get,” said Wallingford, who canned three of six 3-point shots to help him reach a single-game career high for points. “We could have taken care of the ball better, especially in the first half.”

After committing nine turnovers in the first half, Maine totaled seven in the second. The 0-4 Nor’easters had 18 total.

“We looked for simplicity and we made it too complicated early on,” said Maine coach John Giannini. “We were trying to hit home runs instead of singles every time down.”

Bangor junior Joe Campbell had another solid, all-around game with 10 points and seven rebounds. Senior point man Eric Dobson helped the Bears get back to a more simplistic approach by dishing out a game-high 10 assists and grabbing six rebounds.

Sophomore guard Matt McManus, UNE’s lone double-digit scorer, had 15 points in the first half, but was held to five in the second.

“We missed some switches in the first half, but we did a much better job communicating in the second half to limit their open shots,” said Giannini, who admitted he was looking more at individual evaluation and improvement than team production, as NCAA Division III UNE of Biddeford was a big underdog to the Div. I Bears.

In the second game, Brown padded a 15-point halftime lead by scoring the first 12 points of the second half. The Bears never trailed by less than 19 the rest of the game.

“We’re a young team with a lot of inexperienced players, so we’re still making mistakes, but we made some progress tonight,” said Glen Miller, head coach of 2-2 Brown.

Freshman forward Sam Manhanga led the Bears with 20 points while senior forward Jaime Kilburn had 12 points and 10 rebounds. Senior guard Patrick Powers had 15 points and six rebounds.

Senior Bartas Samaitas led the 2-7 UMFK Bengals with 24 points. Roy Goldstein had 19 points and six rebounds.

Brown outrebounded UMFK 49-28 and outshot the Bengals 53.7 to 42.9 percent.

Maine’s players were excited about playing their first real game at their practice site.

“Yeah, it was a great experience,” Flavin said. “It’s a lot of fun with a crowd there.”

Giannini hoped to see a bigger crowd than the 1,189 fans looking down on the court.

“I’m a little surprised there weren’t more people there, but hopefully we’ll have more people Saturday with more alumni in town and us playing a good team like Brown,” he said.

Maine plays the Ivy League Brown Bears today at 8 p.m. The Nor’easters will face UMFK at 6 p.m.

BLACK BEARS 99, NOR’EASTERS 50

U-New England (0-4) Maine (2-1)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

McManus 8 17 0 0 20 Dobson 1 2 2

Oliver 0 6 0 0 0 Petkus 3 6 9

Pierce 0 4 0 0 0 Reed 5 8 14

Berthiaume 2 7 0 0 5 Dubois 2 6 10 10

Button 0 3 0 0 0 Campbell 3 10

Hall 2 3 0 0 6 Wallingford 4 7 12

Perry 1 2 0 0 3 Flavin 11 14 26

Regis 0 6 0 0 0 Bruff 3 6 8

Warner 0 1 0 0 0 Ahvenniemi 2 8

Farynaz 2 3 0 0 4

Mills 3 8 0 0 9

Floyd 0 3 0 0 0

Chapman 0 2 1 2 1

Hardy 1 2 0 0 2

Thomas 0 0 0 0 0

Totals 19 67 1 2 50 34 60 17 29 99

U-New England 26 50

Maine 44 99

3-pt. goals ? U-New England (11-34): McManus 4-8, Hall 2-3, Mills 3-6, Berthiaume 1-4, Perry 1-1, Oliver 0-3, Pierce 0-1, Button 0-1, Floyd 0-1, Hardy 0-1, Warner 0-1, Regis 0-4; Maine (14-27): Petkus 3-6, Reed 3-5, Campbell 2-5, Wallingford 3-6, Flavin 1-1, Bruff 2-4

Attendance: 1,189

BRUINS 95, BENGALS 73

Brown (2-2) UM-Fort Kent (2-7)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Powers 6 14 0 0 15 Cooper 0 2 0

Ruscoe 2 8 1 2 6 Durost 1 6 4

Forte 3 10 0 0 7 Trinity 1 3 2

Kilburn 5 9 2 2 12 Samaitis 6 13 10 11 24

Manhanga 9 10 2 2 20 Henry 4 9 12

Becker 4 8 0 0 8 Goldstein 6 11 4 5 19

Logan 2 2 0 0 4 Esancy 0 0 0

Chones 1 5 0 0 3 Goehring 3 8

Braun 1 2 1 3 3 Nadeau 1 6 4

Salter 4 6 0 0 9 Bayanilla 0 0

McDonald 0 0 0 0 0 Veloso 0 1 0

Flaherty 4 6 0 0 8

Totals 41 80 6 9 95 Totals 22 56 20 24 73

Brown 51 95

UM-Fort Kent 36 73

3-pt. goals ? Brown (7-27): Powers 3-8, Ruscoe 1-6, Chones 1-3, Salter 1-3, Forte 1-3, Becker 0-4; UMFK (9-18): Goldstein 3-5, Samaitis 2-3, Henry 2-3, Nadeau 1-2, Goehring 1-1, Durost 0-3, Trinity 0-1

Attendance: 1,189