BANGOR — As coaching dilemmas go, Richard Barron’s was ideal Saturday.

His Maine women’s basketball team was playing so superbly on both ends of the court in a 76-38 rout of Bryant that he had a difficult time deciding when to turn to his bench.

“I don’t think there was any dropoff when we were substituting,” Barron said after his team’s most lopsided victory of the season, before an announced crowd of 1,533 at the Cross Insurance Center. “In fact, it was hard to substitute because everybody’s playing well, you don’t want to take somebody out who just did things well.”

Eventually, all 14 Black Bears played. But that was because the lead kept escalating.

Maine (8-4) went on a 16-0 run in the first quarter and maintained that effort minute by minute. Bryant (2-7) never scored more than three points in succession.

The Black Bears built a 43-20 halftime lead and were determined to build on it, something that didn’t happen last week when Dartmouth chipped a big lead down to a single point before Maine held firm to secure the win.

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The halftime message, according to guard Sigi Koizar:

“We have to go out strong, treat it as if it was 0-0 and then get another lead, get going again.”

Koizar led Maine with 18 points. Forward Liz Wood chipped in 15 points and six steals, moving into ninth place on the Black Bears’ all-time scoring list with 1,250 for her career. Sophie Weckstrom scored 10 points.

Maine shot 58 percent from the field (33 of 57). Bryant was harried into 1-of-16 shooting from the 3-point arc while committing 25 turnovers, which Maine turned into 27 points.

It was the worst loss of the season for the Bulldogs, who defeated Maine 65-52 in the opener a year ago. In that game, freshman guard Ivory Bailey surprised Maine with a 24-point game. On Saturday, she was visibly frustrated while managing a mere seven points, none in the second half.

Maine had five days to prepare and it showed. The Black Bears were active on defense, passed the ball crisply and got contributions throughout their lineup. Eleven players scored.

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“I think it was really good for us just to be able to focus on ourselves for a couple practices,” Wood said after her team played nine games in 17 days. “When you’re playing games back-to-back-to-back, it’s always, ‘Who’s next? Who’s next?’ I think it was a big difference for us today to be able to work on just what we do well and really focus on what we’re looking for from ourselves. I think it showed today. I think our execution was really good and it hasn’t really been for 40 minutes recently.”

Maine had 17 assists against eight turnovers. It was a result of a more measured approach to the offense, Koizar said.

“We remained patient and within the play, and that’s something we’ve been talking about that we didn’t do well in the past couple of games,” she said.

Wood concurred.

“There was a couple of times where in the last few games we would have gone off script and maybe turned the ball over. But we slowed down, we set it back up and we got back in the play, and we got a score late in the shot clock,” she said.

As for defense, Maine squelched a Bryant team that was averaging 6.6 3-pointers per game, putting intense pressure on the guards. Bryant’s Tiersa Winder had nine turnovers with no assists. Bryant did collect 15 offensive rebounds, but only seven points off them.

It was a dominant performance and ran the Black Bears’ home winning streak to nine games. Next up is another five-day break and then a matchup in Bangor against Clemson on Friday.

“If we play like we played today, I think every game is winnable,” Barron said.

The only challenge may be dividing up the minutes.


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