STONY BROOK, N.Y. — Mouhamadou Gueye and the Stony Brook men's basketball team came up big in crunch time on Monday afternoon. As a result, the Seawolves remain unbeaten and alone in first place in America East play.

Omar Habwe drained a tiebreaking three-pointer with 4 minutes, 52 seconds remaining and Gueye followed with a pair of close-range buckets to open a late seven-point lead.

Stony Brook ultimately defeated UMass Lowell, 71-64, at Island Federal Arena to sweep the back-to-back games.

The Seawolves (6-4 overall) are off to a 4-0 start in league play for the second time in three seasons.

After Habwe's three-pointer, a steal by Jordan McKenzie led to a dunk from Gueye and a five-point lead. Then, the next possession down the floor, Gueye grabbed an offensive rebound off Juan Felix Rodriguez's miss and had a putback for a 63-56 advantage.

"What won us the game was offensive rebounds and hustle plays in the last six minutes of the game," coach Geno Ford said.

Gueye also had collected an offensive rebound and dunk to break a 54-all tie with 5:36 remaining.

"We had to match their energy in the second half and make tough plays to come out with the win," said Gueye, who had been limited to 10 minutes on Sunday against the River Hawks due to foul trouble.

Said McKenzie: "Mo's a huge key. … He got a couple of key rebounds and he shot the ball well from the free-throw line."

Consecutive thunderous dunks from Tykei Greene and Habwe nine seconds apart midway through the second half had provided Stony Brook with a 49-42 lead. However, UMass Lowell (2-6, 1-3 AE) rallied to pull even at 52 on a layup from Darion Jordan-Thomas with 6:45 remaining.

Greene and Leighton Elliott-Sewell both picked up their fourth fouls and were forced to the bench for a handful of minutes down the stretch. But the balanced Seawolves withstood the dual jolts.

Rodriguez led Stony Brook with a career-high-matching 21  points. Sayles (11) and Greene (10) also reached double-figures in scoring. Gueye and McKenzie contributed nine points and five rebounds apiece. McKenzie logged a season-high 22 minutes.

"It's hard to beat a team once in conference play let alone twice," McKenzie said. "… They were outrebounding us in the first half like crazy. And we just stayed tough and stuck with it and calmed down and played our game."

Stony Brook returns to action next weekend with a pair of games against UMBC at Island Federal Arena.