Box Score (PDF)

LOWELL, Mass. – The UMass Lowell men's basketball team (12-10, 4-3 AE) dropped a 78-59 decision against America East opponent Maine (4-18, 2-5 AE) on Wednesday evening, snapping a four-game win streak.
 
Redshirt-junior Christian Lutete (Silver Spring, Md.) paced the River Hawks with 26 points and six rebounds. He was joined in double figures by freshman Darius Henderson (Pasadena, Calif.), who set a new career high with 12 points, and redshirt-senior Josh Gantz (Grove City, Ohio), who totaled 10 points. Freshman Bryce Daley (Pittsfield, Mass.) finished with six assists, as well.
 
The Black Bears' Andrew Fleming logged a game-high 38 points on 18-for-20 shooting to lead his squad in the decision.
 
"We've had a lot of good moments this year and this was not one of them," said Head Coach Pat Duquette. "We never got into sync and didn't show nearly as much fight as we need to. There were mistakes across the board, so this is a real disappointing loss, but hopefully we can bounce back quickly because we were playing good basketball up until this game. Credit to Maine, I thought they played really well."
 
Maine won the tip and worked to create a two-possession buffer in the opening minutes, but Lutete drained threes on back-to-back possessions to knot the score at 13-13 with 12:44 remaining in the first half.
 
The squads were tied once more before the Black Bears used a 13-5 spurt to pull ahead, 28-20, at 5:15. Buckets from Lutete and Gantz closed the gap, although the visitors would score seven of the last 10 points in the period to take a 37-27 edge into the break.
 
Coming out of halftime, sophomore Obadiah Noel (Frederick, Md.) knocked down a three and Henderson followed with his team's next six points to put the River Hawks within three at 39-36 with 15:59 left to play. However, Maine capitalized on almost 10 scoreless minutes by its host to stretch the margin to 62-36 at 10:32.
 
Gantz snapped the silence with a pair of jumpers before Lutete would tally 16 of his 26 points in the final five minutes, but the Black Bears were still able to secure the decisive victory.    
 
UMass Lowell still owns a 9-4 advantage in the all-time series against the Black Bears. The River Hawks continue their homestand against the America East's top-ranked team, Vermont, on Saturday, February 2 at 5:30 p.m.