Ahmad Walker leads balanced Stony Brook past Maine

Stony Brook continues to make opposing coaches rip up their scouting reports.

Think you can beat the Seawolves by slowing down sophomore big man Jameel Warney? It might be time to get back into the video room.

Five players have led Stony Brook in scoring this season, and Ahmad Walker was the latest in a 79-61 win over Maine Sunday at Pritchard Gymnasium. Led by the redshirt freshman guard's 22 points and 11 rebounds, both of which were career highs, the Seawolves had five players in double figures -- and Warney wasn't one of them.

"I think it's just unselfishness," Walker said. "I think that nobody really cares about who's the high man or who does this or who does that as long as we get the win at the end of the day."

Stony Brook (15-6, 7-0 America East) has been doing a lot of that last part lately. The Seawolves have won six in a row and nine of 11 and are the only undefeated team in the America East. The key, at least offensively, has been uncanny balance.

"I think we've been doing a good job in beating people in different ways," said Eric McAlister, who scored all 10 of his points in the first 12 minutes. "It seems like a different guy every night. Tonight we didn't really have Jameel, but Ahmad stepped up."

Dave Coley scored 17 points and Carson Puriefoy and Anthony Jackson had 11 each for Stony Brook.

The Seawolves led by only seven at halftime until Maine (3-16, 1-6) made the mistake of pressing them. That's when Stony Brook turned it on, scoring as many points in the first 8:38 of the second half as it did in the first half (27) and expanding its lead to 59-34 with 10:08 to go.

The Seawolves broke the press with ease, shooting 70.4 percent from the field (19-for-27) in their 52-point second half.

"We're the fastest team in the league, so I want to get up and down the court and run," Seawolves coach Steve Pikiell said. "If they want to run with us, that's great."

Xavier Pollard had 19 points and Till Gloger added 10 off the bench for Maine. Pikiell wasn't entirely pleased with how his defense played, but the offense? That's clearly not a problem.

"Offensively, I'm not really concerned with this team at all," Pikiell said. "I mean, we can score points and we can do it in a lot of ways."