Bates senior Nick Schmiemann (Weymouth, Mass.) led Bates with 15 points, hitting 4-of-5 shots from beyond the arc, while senior Brian Ellis (Braintree, Mass.) added 13 points, 12 rebounds, four assists and three steals for the Bobcats.
Junior Reid Christian (Pownal, Maine) added a career-high 14 points, 11 of them in the first half. Sophomore Mark Brust (Duxbury, Mass.) chipped in with 13 points, all in the first half.
Bates spotted Thomas a 3-0 lead on a three-pointer by Francisco Alicea to open the game, then scored 11 unanswered points, including two buckets each by Brust and senior Alex Gallant (Bangor, Maine) and a 3-pointer by Schmiemann, for an 11-3 lead in the opening 4:16 of the game. Alicea stemmed the bleeding with a layup, but Schmiemann answered with another three, followed by two straight jumpers by Brust for four straight made shots by the Bobcats. A steal by junior John Squires (Swampscott, Mass.) led to a missed three by Brust, but Squires made the putback for a 20-7 lead with 12:58 left in the first half.
Thomas's Andrew Duncanson scored six straight points for the Terriers: a jumper, three free throws at the 5:27 mark, and two more foul shots at the 4:58 mark. A layup by Francisco Alicea with 4:27 to go narrowed the margin to 10 at 35-25, the closest the Terriers would get to the Bobcats the rest of the way.
Bates finished the half with a 7-0 spurt over the final 1:49: a jumper by junior Thomas Deegan (Weymouth, Mass.), a putback by Christian, and finally a three-pointer by Brust with 37 seconds left, assisted by Christian, which made it 48-27, where the score stood at intermission.
Bates outscored Thomas 19-3 in bench points in the first half, 14-4 on second-chance points.
The Terriers opened the second half with seven straight points, including a three-point play by Duncanson that cut Bates' lead to 48-35 with 17:11 remaining. Ellis answered the spurt with a three-point play, then he assisted Squires for a layup and hit two straight foul shots to push Bates' advantage back to 20, at 55-35, with 15:32 to go.
The Bobcats continued to pour it on from there, building the lead as high as 31, on a three by Christian that made it 73-42 with 8:12 to go.
Duncanson was the lone Thomas (0-3) player in double figures, with 16 points.
The Bobcats (3-1) outrebounded Thomas by a 52-27 margin. Sophomore Ryan Weston (Bangor, Maine) contributed nine boards, and Gallant added seven.
Ellis moved past Seth Cummings '65 (1,054 points) and Jim Sutherland '61 (1,058) and into 25th place on Bates' all-time scoring list, with 1,066.
Bates (3-1) next plays at Gordon College on Thursday at 7 p.m., then hosts Bowdoin in a non-conference matchup on Saturday at 2 p.m.