BANGOR, Maine – After a tough loss to Dartmouth on Saturday, the University of Maine men's basketball bounced back to rout Maine-Machias 98-43 on Monday night at the Cross Insurance Center.
 
On a day where the team raised an estimated 1,000 pairs of socks for the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter, the Black Bears (2-9) stymied the Clippers (4-7) offensively, holding the UMaine System School to shoot just 31.9 percent (15-for-47) while turning over the ball a total of 26 times. The Black Bears tallied 20 steals as a team, just three takeaways away from a school record. Terion Moss recorded six steals himself, which was two away from a UMaine record. 

"I think there's still a lot of things to work on," said first-year head coach Richard Barron said after the game. "We started out the game still not shooting three-pointers very well. We've got to get better at that. But we did shore up our defense a little bit there towards the end the first half. There were some times when we kind of seemed to get two or three misses and put backs, but they were off of the power moves that were no longer shots. We kind of stood and watched and we need to do a better job with that. It was nice to see a lot of guys play and it was it was nice to see a good turn out with the sock drive and people contributing there. So those are certainly victories for us."  
  
The offense shot season bests from the floor (.571) and from the charity stripe (.800, 20-for-25) as Sergio El Darwich led the squad with a perfect shooting performance of 9-for-9 on his field goal attempts, while draining 3-of-3 from the charity-stripe. The native of Lebanon was just three field goal attempts made away to tie the school record for highest field goal percentage in a single game, finishing with a career-high 21 points.
 
The Black Bears dished out 26 assists, as 10 of the 11 players that played tallied at least one dime. Andrew Fleming and Miks Antoms led the way with four assists a piece
 
Vincent Eze also established a career-high with 16 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the field. He grabbed four rebounds off the bench, while distributing three assists, along with collecting a steal. Isaiah White knocked down four of his eight shots from the floor for 13 points, while Fleming and Antoms also reached double-figures with 11 points each. Fleming stuffed the stat sheet with five caroms, four dimes, one block and three steals in 24 minutes of work. Antoms' 11 points is also a new career-high for the Latvia native.
 
Despite the lopsided score, Maine and Maine-Machias went basket-for-basket for the first 10 minutes of the first half. The Black Bears embarked on a 35-7 charge over the final 12:56 of the first half to take a 48-19 lead into the locker room. El Darwich had already established a career-high with 15 points in the first frame. White tallied all 13 of his points in the first half as well.
 
Maine increased its 29-point lead all as high as 56 points (93-36) in the second-half, doubling up the Clippers by a total of 50-24 in the final 20 minutes.
 
El Darwich talked about the Black Bears getting momentum following a sluggish start mid-way through the first half.
 
Trey Thompson and Dante Ramos led the Clippers with 13-points apiece. Thompson completed the double-double with a game-high 16 rebounds.
 
Maine heads back on the road on Saturday, when the Black Bears take on the Duquesne Dukes in the Steel City. Tip-off is slated for noon against at the Palumbo Center.   
 
-UMaine-