The Stony Brook University men’s basketball team (15-5, 6-1) won yet another conference game on Saturday against the University of Maine Black Bears (8-12, 3-4), taking the match by a score of 79-69.

“We were playing the best scoring team in the league,” head coach Steve Pikiell said. “We were clicking on offensive cylinders.”

It is the best 20-game start for Stony Brook as a Division-I program and best start in conference play while a member of the America East.

It was the 28th all-time meeting between the two teams. Before Saturday’s game, the Seawolves lead that series with 16 wins.

Senior forward Tommy Brenton had a triple-double for the game, the first for Stony Brook in Division-I with 15 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists.

“I honestly didn’t know until five or six minutes left that I was that close,” Brenton said.

Junior forward Eric McAlister was the leading scorer with 22 points, more than double his career high. Five Stony Brook players scored in double-digits for the game.

“Whenever you make your first couple of shots, it gives you more confidence to shoot the next one,” McAlister said.

The Seawolves got off to a fast start, scoring 13 points in a little more than four minutes. This initial plethora of scoring reduced to a malaise in which neither team scored a basket for three minutes. Senior guard Marcus Rouse broke this with a three-pointer, giving his team a nine-point lead.

A minute later,  Brenton set up the play of the game by tossing up the ball for redshirt freshman Scott King to complete an alley oop dunk.

Maine’s scoring woes continued. The Black Bears could not score a basket for six minutes. They managed to sneak back into the game but were unable to significantly cut into Stony Brook’s lead in the first half. With six minutes remaining  the Seawolves still held a 25-16 lead. The teams exchanged six points apiece for the remainder of the half until Stony Brook took a 31-22 advantage into halftime.

In the first half, Stony Brook got 10 points off of turnovers and held Maine to 29.6 percent shooting.

The Seawolves got off to another fast start in the second half, scoring nine points in a little more than three minutes, giving themselves nearly twice as many points as the Black Bears.

Maine did not go quietly, however, and went on a six-point run of its own to keep themselves within striking distance. Rouse brought that to an end with a three-pointer, putting his team up 47-31 with 14:55 left in the game.

The two teams battled through deep into the second half, maintaining a consistent offensive force, meaning that the Seawovles would maintain their lead but the Black Bears would also not be put away.

With a little more than five minutes left in the game, Maine crept dangerously close to tying the game, trailing by only eight points. Then Brenton and McAlister put together another dunk that gave the increasingly anxious crowd something to cheer about.

“The whole team feeds off the crowd and the band,” Brenton said. “Having home court advantage is huge for us.”

The Black Bears could not muster enough offense to have a chance in the final minutes. As the clocked ticked down the final seconds, Stony Brook still had a double-digit lead, giving them the victory.

Stony Brook will next play the University at Albany on Tuesday, Jan. 29, at 7 p.m. It will be the first of three consecutive road games.

“It’s league play,” Pikiell said, “So every game is huge.”