STONY BROOK, N.Y. — The Stony Brook men's basketball team heeded coach Geno Ford's call for a strong first 20 minutes against conference-leading UMBC on Monday afternoon.

Unfortunately for the Seawolves, the Retrievers opened the second half with eight straight points en route to a 60-48 win at Island Federal Arena.

UMBC swept the back-to-back games as Stony Brook dipped to 6-6 in America East play.

The teams had split the lead nearly evenly in the first half, and UMBC took a 26-24 lead into halftime. After the break, Brandon Horvath converted a three-point play, RJ Eytle-Rock had a layup and Darnell Rogers drained a three-pointer to open a 10-point advantage before Mouhamadou Gueye answered for the Seawolves.

Gueye paced the Seawolves for a second straight day, this time with team highs with 16 points and 11 rebounds.

"The whole first half we had a small lead, were down by a possession," coach Geno Ford said. "[The second half] we came out and we gave up two offensive rebounds and didn't get stops on those possessions.  We came up empty on offense, but if they didn't have the two offensive rebounds,  we only would have been down five or six. Instead, you're down 10. And at that point there's a lot of game left. And we did a good job of getting back into it and made it a two-possession game a couple of times."

Stony Brook next plays a pair of games next weekend at second-place Vermont.