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The University of Maine offense looked as out of sync as they have all year, especially Tuesday night as the men’s basketball squad fell to Stony Brook University, 70-59 at Alfond Arena.
UMaine continued to shoot poorly from the free throw line, converting only 13 of 24 attempts and committed 20 turnovers, which led to 34 Stony Brook points.
“You can’t give up 34 points on turnovers,” Coach Ted Woodward said. “That’s half their points, and it’s not like they were doing anything crazy to get them. We were just much sloppier with the basketball than we have been all year long.”
Their troubles did not end with turnovers as the Seawolves were able to hold UMaine to less than 42 percent shooting on only 48 shots, compared with the 64 taken by Stony Brook. This is the mark of a much-improved Stony Brook defense – which now leads the America East conference, holding opponents to 61.9 points per game.
“We mix it up on defense. We grind it out and we get a lot of turnovers,” said Stony Brook coach Steve Pikiell. “That’s how we play.”
The defense was able to hold UMaine leading-scorer Mark Socoby to only one field goal on the night. The normally sweet-shooting junior guard from Houlton missed all eight of his three-point attempts on the night.
“We came out cold, and they came out on fire,” said sophomore forward Sean McNally after the game.
McNally was one of the lone bright spots for the Black Bears, leading the team with 15 points and 10 rebounds.
Gerald McLemore and Kaimondre Owes also provided some scoring punch, dropping in 14 and 10 points, respectively.
With the loss, UMaine fell to 7-15 overall and to eighth place in America East with a 3-7 conference record. They were 3-3 in conference play until a three-game stretch last week that pitted them against the top three America East clubs. Despite holding double-digit leads in all three games, they could not hold on, losing all three.
The Black Bears look to right the ship in the second game of their three-game homestand against the University of Maryland Baltimore County on Saturday night. In their previous game at UMBC on Jan. 10, UMaine lost in heartbreaking fashion in the waning seconds of the game. Hopefully the memory of that loss will give the squad some extra motivation and they can pull out a win. They conclude their home stand with another tough matchup with the third-ranked team in the conference Binghamton University.
