DURHAM, N.H. – The return of freshman forward Philippe Tchekane Bofia coincided with an impressive all-around effort by the University of Maine men as they notched their second straight victory and second conference win Thursday night.

The Black Bears exhibited balanced scoring and a pesky, morphing, man-to-man defense while seeing an already improved frontcourt keep improving en route to a 67-53 basketball victory over the University of New Hampshire.

“You know, we never had a chance. Never had a chance,” said UNH coach Bill Herrion. “It was 9-0 before you could blink and 12-2 before you could sit down.

“They just thoroughly outplayed us tonight … We got outcoached, outplayed, out-toughed, outhustled. That’s what I saw.”

Maine, which never trailed and was never tied in the game, outshot UNH (6-12, 3-4) 50 percent to 38.3 and outrebounded the Wildcats 31-26.

“I felt like since Christmas we’ve played very good offensively, shooting about 50 percent, and we’ve been focusing on getting our defense back to where it belongs and having Phil back tonight certainly helped give us good balance,” said Maine coach Ted Woodward.

The Bears committed one more turnover (17 to 16), but had five blocks (all by Olli Ahvenniemi), 10 steals and more points off turnovers (16 to 8) than the Wildcats. The Bears also had 10 second-chance points to UNH’s four.

“Maine did a great job getting the ball inside and we probably gave them too many easy buckets,” said junior forward Blagoj Janev, who led UNH with 13 points and six boards.

“I think their switching on defense bothered us a bit,” said UNH guard Chris Vetrano. “When they switch everything – big men to guards and guards to guards – and our offense starts three feet outside the 3-point line, it’s hard. You can’t get into a rhythm.”

Maine senior guard Ernest Turner led the way with 17 points, seven rebounds, and four assists as the Bears improved to 7-10 overall and 2-4 in America East.

“We had a nice run in the second half and guys made big plays,” said Turner. “We were penetrating and looking for our [big men] or kicking it out to our shooters.”

Maine used an 18-4 run over a six-minute span in the second half to expand a four-point lead to 59-41 lead with 10 minutes left in the game and never led by less than 14 the rest of the way. The Bears got contributions from several players in the run, but junior guard Jon Sheets came up big with two 3-pointers and a 12-foot jumper.

Sheets finished with 13 points plus a couple of steals.

“Not just from an offensive standpoint, but from a defensive standpoint, we got tremendous contributions from several players,” Woodward said.

Tchekane Bofia, who missed the last two games with a two-game suspension for a flagrant foul and subsequent ejection in Binghamton, wound up with 11 points.

“Coming back, I was just trying to put into practice what coach always tells us,” said Bofia. “Always give your best when you play.”

Brandon Odom came off the UNH bench for 11 points.

The Bears got hot early, scoring the first basket 14 seconds after tipoff, scoring nine straight points, and taking a 14-4 lead before the Wildcats were able to answer with a run of their own. UNH switched to a 2-3 zone and scored six straight to spark an 11-3 run and pull within two points.

“They kept going wherever they wanted to go on offense. Switching to zone kind of saves us in the first half, but we kept shooting ourselves in the foot, throwing it away and turning it over,” Herrion said.

BLACK BEARS 67, WILDCATS 53

Maine (7-10) UNH (6-12)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

R. Turner 2 4 2 2 7 Vetrano 3 5 8

E. Turner 5 9 4 6 17 Janev 2 8 13

Sheets 4 11 2 2 13 Anderson 2 4

Ahveniemi 4 5 1 1 9 Caterina 2 4

Tchk-Bofia 5 9 1 2 11 Chrstnsn 2 5

Bruff 1 3 0 0 2 Gibbs 2 2 4

Hight 0 2 0 0 0 Tobey 0 1 0

Petkus 2 3 2 3 8 Karalis 2 5 4

Cavnaugh 0 0 0 0 0 Zeko 0 2 0

Djanabia 0 0 0

Odom 3 9 2 11

Totals 23 46 12 16 67 Totals 18 47 11 15 53

Maine 33 67

New Hampshire 29 53

3-pt. goals – Maine (9-20): R. Turner 1-3, E. Turner 3-4, Sheets 3-9, Ahvenniemi 0-1, Hight 0-1, Petkus 2-2; New Hampshire (6-22): Vetrano 2-3, Janev 1-4, Anderson 0-1, Caterina 0-2, Christensen 0-3, Karalis 0-2, Odom 3-7

Attendance: 1,836