BANGOR — The Maine men’s basketball team forced Dartmouth to play at a faster tempo Wednesday, but that just meant the visitors had more time to savor their first road victory of the season.

The Big Green had little trouble contending with the Black Bears’ full-court press while cruising to a 79-69 victory that wasn’t as close as the score indicates.

Dartmouth scored 36 points in the paint and another 19 at the free-throw line, and trailed for a mere 31 seconds in the first half. Maine (2-6) didn’t help itself by shooting a miserable 5 of 29 from the 3-point arc, including some ugly off-balance attempts.

“That’s how we want to play. We’ve obviously got to get a lot better at it. We weren’t able to sustain the energy,” Maine Coach Bob Walsh said after he used 12 players, who combined for one blocked shot. “We have to be tough enough to compete regardless, and it just doesn’t seem like we’re there yet.”

Dartmouth (3-3) was led by 19 points from Miles Wright, and 18 points and 13 rebounds from Evan Boudreaux. The Big Green committed 15 turnovers while playing faster than usual, but shot 49.1 percent from the field (27 of 55) and built a 20-point lead midway through the second half.

“When a team presses you like they do, you have to take advantage of the numbers,” Dartmouth Coach Paul Cormier said. “You get past those traps, you’ve got to go.

“We wanted them to try to block shots and we’re going to challenge them right at the rim, and I think we did a fairly good job of that.”

Maine committed 23 fouls, a problem in particular for its post players. Centers Devine Eke and Till Gloger combined to play a mere 29 minutes because each had four fouls, as did forward Ilija Stojilkovic.

“We went smaller and tried to make the game really quick, because we knew the half-court and the boards was going to be a problem,” Walsh said.

They weren’t the only problems. Lavar Harewood made back-to-back 3-pointers to force a 14-14 tie midway through the first half. Garet Beal then sank another to give Maine a lead.

But it was illusory. Beal and Kevin Little combined for 1 of 14 from the arc.

Walsh said the result was particularly galling because he felt like his team was showing improvement in practice.

“In practice we get mad when the other team scores. We get after each other, we dive on loose balls,” freshman Ryan Bernstein said after leading Maine with 13 points and eight assists in 32 minutes. “And today it seemed like all of us as a whole didn’t want to compete as much as in practice.”

Harewood added 12 points in 14 minutes. Eke and Little contributed 10 points apiece.

“I feel like we lacked composure on a lot of plays today,” Harewood said after Maine’s third consecutive loss.

After the game, a despondent Walsh gave his team an assignment, writing Bernstein’s stat line – which included six rebounds and only one turnover –on the whiteboard in the locker room.

“Toughest kid we’ve got, competes without fear,” Walsh said of the 6-foot walk-on known as Boz. “I asked the guys to go home and look in the mirror, and figure out why Ryan was capable of that line.”

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