But you still need to activate your account.
Sign in or Subscribe to view this content.
ORONO – In spite of its overall youth, the University of Maine men’s basketball team has been able to achieve consistency in two key areas this season: Rebounding and defense.
The Black Bears have outrebounded every opponent while also holding them below 40 percent shooting from the field.
Saturday afternoon, the Bears faced an even younger team in Northeastern University and the Huskies came away from Alfond Arena with a 70-57 victory by beating the Bears at their own game.
The 2-2 Huskies shot a scalding 61.9 percent from the field in the second half to finish at 46.3 for the game and, although they were outrebounded by Maine 36-34, they still won the battle on the boards in some measure.
“We’ve outrebounded everyone we’ve played and we did again today, but I think that was a little misleading because there was a stretch where they took over the boards and that’s where they got the lead for good,” said coach Ted Woodward, whose Bears are now 3-3.
That stretch came early in the second half, when the Huskies scored eight straight points to turn what had been a 29-29 game at halftime into a 43-35 NU lead with 14:04 left. The Huskies’ charge fueled a game-changing 16-3 scoring run which gave them a lead that wouldn’t fall below nine points over the last 10 minutes.
“They had two offensive rebound put-backs, a missed layup and a score for them, and a turnover with a score for them,” Woodward said of NU’s 8-0 run. “That’s eight points for them in a two-minute stretch and a lot of that was our fault.”
“They got the balls when they needed to get them off the glass or off the floor,” he added. “Northeastern put 40 minutes together today and I don’t know that we matched them.”
Sophomore guard-forward Matt Janning, who scored four points in the key run, led the Huskies with 17 points and seven rebounds.
“Coach talked about how important defense was going to be and in that run, we locked down and were guarding very well, giving them one shot and getting the rebounds,” said NU’s Chris Alvarez. “When we were getting those rebounds, we were able to get out and go and run our transition game.”
Alvarez and fellow junior forward Eugene Spates had big games off the bench. Alvarez contributed 10 points, seven rebounds, five assists, three blocks and two steals while Spates scored 15 points in 15 minutes of playing time.
“Any time you can get a win on the road against a quality opponent, you have to be happy,” said NU head coach Bill Coen, whose team plays 19 of 29 games on the road this season. “But I was especially happy with our overall team effort with terrific production off the bench. They really set the tone for the game, the way it was played out.”
The Huskies outscored Maine 29-9 in bench points, 17-7 in points off turnovers and 30-22 in the paint.
“They were going over the back of us and getting rebounds. We weren’t boxing out as well as we have to,” said Maine center Brian Andre. “I know how we can play, holding teams below 40 percent shooting. We have to bring it every day and today we didn’t.”
The senior from Bingham had 17 points, six rebounds and two blocks.
Sophomore guard Mark Socoby of Houlton led the Bears with 17 points, eight rebounds and three assists.
“They pretty much did what they wanted and imposed their will in the second half and we kind of backed down for whatever reason,” Socoby said.
Socoby appeared to injure his right ankle or leg late in the game, but stayed on the court and said it was fine afterward.
UMaine sophomore guard Junior Bernal finished with 14 points, six rebounds, three assists and three steals.
HUSKIES 70, BLACK BEARS 57
Northeastern (2-2) Maine (3-3)
Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP
Janning 6 13 4 7 17 Socoby 4 10 11 17
Adako 4 7 0 0 8 Cook 0 0 0
Ojougboh 3 5 3 4 9 Andre 7 11 17
Allen 3 10 1 1 7 Hight 0 2 0
Smith 0 2 0 0 0 Bernal 5 15 14
Alvarez 4 6 0 2 10 Hanzlik 0 2 0
Spates 3 7 7 8 15 McNally 1 2 5
Bataille 0 2 0 0 0 Costigan 0 0
Aragbaye 0 0 0 0 0 Bofia 1 5 4
Washingtn 2 2 0 0 4
Totals 25 54 15 22 70 Totals 18 47 17 26 57
Northeastern 29 70
Maine 29 57
3-pt. goals – Northeastern (5-16): Alvarez 2-2, Spates 2-4, Janning 1-6, Allen 0-1, Smith 0-1, Bataille 0-2; Maine (4-13): Socoby 2-6, McNally 1-1, Bernal 1-3, Hight 0-1, Bofia 0-2
Comments
comments for this post are closed