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First appeared Feb. 24, 2003
It was a day for seniors at Alfond Arena on Sunday, as coach John Giannini started all four of his veterans hoping to end a two-game losing streak.
The University of Maine men’s basketball team built a 13-point halftime lead and rolled to the 74-56 win over the Stony Brook University Seawolves. The win moved the Black Bears to 8-7 in the America East, 13-14 overall, with only one conference game remaining.
The senior duo of Clayton Brown and Rickey White each poured in 16 points, and the guard combination of Derrick Jackson and Eric Dobson held Stony Brook’s leading scorer, D.J. Munir, to just 11 points. Munir poured in 25 points when the two teams met earlier in the season.
“Quickness. We were much quicker than they were,” Brown said as the Black Bears outscored their opponents 22-10 in the post in the first half. “We make quick post moves and get to the rim. They beat us three times in a row and we just didn’t want to go down that path [to the postseason] without beating them.”
The Black Bears used the fast break to seal the win late in the game. Stony Brook applied full-court pressure to try to get back in the game, but Maine’s guards beat it on three straight possessions. Jackson fed White on the three-on-two break to take a 70-52 lead. On the next possession, Dobson hit Kevin Reed in stride for two more. Seawolf forward Cori Spencer, who had a team-high 14 points, answered with a bucket, but Jackson this time found senior Clayton Brown in the post for an easy two.
Brown has averaged 15 points, mainly off the bench, in his last five games. Brown was the biggest difference from the Jan. 26 meeting, which the Seawolves won 81-79, Stony Brook coach Nick Macarchuk said.
“I think the difference in their team is Clayton Brown,” Macarchuk said. “And not to take anything away from White, White is a sensational player. But, now when Rowe comes out of the game and Clayton Brown comes in the game, they don’t get hurt at all and maybe even play a little better.”
The Seawolves clawed back with a deep three-pointer from Munir over Eric Dobson, cutting the lead to 51-39 with five minutes gone by the second half. But they would get no closer. Dobson, with 12 points and a team-high seven assists, answered right back with a drive off the glass and then fed Brown down low to increase the lead to 16 points.
“I get pushed from my teammates and pushed from Rickey,” Brown said. “It goes back to when we were getting very little playing time. We used to take it to the starters in practice.”
Maine pounded the ball inside in the first half, making 10 lay-ups and shooting nearly 57 percent. Maine leads the America East conference in field goal shooting percentage, successful on 48 percent of their shot attempts.
Off a Bobby Santiago miss, Reed quickly pushed the ball up court and found a streaking Rickey White open between three Seawolf defenders for the lay-in, giving Maine a 31-18 lead with five minutes left in the first half. Reed, who leads the conference in three-point shooting, drilled four on his way to a game-high 17 points.
“We really did a good job getting control of the game,” coach Giannini said. “And as opposed to some of the other games, we did a good job maintaining the lead in the last minute or so.”
Stony Brook continued to press and the Black Bears continued to pound the ball inside. Dobson scored consecutive baskets driving to the middle late in the half, for four of his eight first half points. The Black Bears then increased the lead to 41-26, their largest lead of the half, when Dobson found Brown in the post for the baby hook off the glass.
Stony Brook had won three straight games against the Black Bears. Up next for the Black Bears is a rare non-conference matchup Tuesday night at home against the University of Indiana Purdue-Fort Wayne, an independent team. The season finale is Saturday on the road at Hartford, a team that is in the fight with Maine for spots three through seven in the America East.
