ORONO — University of Maine coach Ted Woodward wants his team to play with a sense of urgency, so who better than a senior to show it how.

Senior co-captain Troy Barnies of Auburn scored 12 of his 14 points in the second half and led a strong defense with three steals as the Black Bears opened their America East conference schedule with a 65-52 victory over Boston University at Alfond Arena on Sunday.

Maine held BU to 32 percent shooting from the floor, including an anemic 6 for 27 (22 percent) inside the 3-point arc. The Terriers, the top 3-point-shooting team in America East, went 10 for 23 from beyond the arc (44 percent).

“We knew the key points of our defense today was we needed to stop their 3-pointers,” Barnies said, “because BU is a very high-level 3-point-shooting team. And, we had to always clog the paint. We always talk about that. We can’t let them score anything easy.”

“We play with a sense of urgency every single possession,” Woodward said. “That’s all we talk about all the time, just not allowing teams to get anything easy.”

Maine (7-6) pulled away with a 16-6 run, sparked by nine straight points from Barnies, who made his last five shots in the game to finish with 14 points and a game-high nine rebounds.

“He closed the game,” Woodward said. “I think he might have gone 100 percent (shooting) down the stretch. It’s always good to have a guy that can make shots.”

Barnies scored four straight baskets in the paint to help the Black Bears extend a three-point lead into a 50-40 advantage with 5:20 to go in the game. John Holland hit a 3-pointer for BU (5-10) to cut the lead to single digits again, but Terrance Mitchell, who came off the bench to score 15 points, answered with a 3 of his own to seal it with 2:36 remaining.

“It’s definitely an important game,” said junior guard Gerald McLemore, who led the Black Bears with 16 points. “We wanted to bounce back. (Thursday’s loss to) Columbia was just out of character for us as a team as far as playing hard and executing. We know BU’s a great team, so it’s definitely a big statement game.”

America East coaches picked the Terriers to win America East in a preseason poll, but they came into this game without one starter, second-leading scorer Jake O’Brien (sprained ankle), and key reserve Dom Morris (“Minor emergency procedure,” according to BU coach Pat Chambers).

“It’a different when you don’t have Jake or Dom out there that can stretch the defense a little bit,” Chambers said. “That’s why we played a lot of four guards. But when they went into their zone, they packed it in pretty well and got to John Holland and Darryl Partin for the most part.”

Partin finished with a game-high 20 points, but on 5-for-14 shooting from the field. Holland, BU’s leading scorer (18.5 ppg) finished with eight points in 30 foul-plagued minutes.

Maine out-rebounded BU, 39-29, and the Bears’ bench outscored the Terriers’, 23-6.

After a sloppy first 10 minutes, Maine went on a 17-4 run, sparked midway through the first half by a Raheem Singleton 3-pointer. Mitchell and McLemore added 3’s of their own during the outburst.

Singleton found Murphy Burnatowski on an alley-oop and Alasdair Fraser capped the stretch with a reverse layup that gave Maine its largest lead, 29-12, with 3:27 remaining in the half. BU trimmed the deficit to 13 by halftime.

BU shot 25 percent from the floor in the half and committed 11 turnovers, which led to 11 Black Bear points.

“I’m very pleased that guys stepped up and really did things we’re capable of defensively,” Woodward said. “We feel like it’s a huge part of our basketball team, and we got back to doing that tonight.”

The Black Bears came out flat at the start of the second half. Partin scored the first eight points to pull the Terriers within five. After a Maine timeout, Holland picked up a steal at halfcourt and went in uncontested for a dunk that made it a three-point game.

Maine slowed BU’s momentum with back-to-back layups by Fraser and McLemore and maintained a seven-point lead for the next five minutes until Partin and Holland hit back-to-back treys to pull the Terriers within 1 with a little over nine minutes to go.