ORONO — It will be a challenging road trip to open the 2010-11 season for the University of Maine men’s basketball team.
Not only do the Black Bears travel to the Mountain time zone for Friday’s season opener at the Utah Valley University in Orem, they’ll trek back across the country on Saturday to face Maryland of the Atlantic Coast Conference on Sunday afternoon.
UMaine will cover more than 4,500 air miles between Thursday and Sunday, going from Portland to Salt Lake City to Baltimore and back to Portland.
“November is a little bit of a bizarre schedule kind of across the board,” said UMaine head coach Ted Woodward. “We have some very big challenges throughout the month of November. Hopefully, we can play good basketball and put ourselves in position to do good things.”
The season-opening trip is one that excites UMaine’s players, both veterans and newcomers alike.
Raheem Singleton, a junior guard from Boston who transferred to UMaine from Monroe Community College in New York, can hardly believe he has finally arrived.
“For me, just the chance to be able to play at the Division I level is a big thing for me,” Singleton said. “It was kind of unrealistic (at first), because I started playing (basketball) in ninth grade.”
Alasdair Fraser, a freshman forward from Scotland, will make his collegiate debut Friday. He is especially interested in Sunday’s contest.
“Obviously, Utah Valley State is going to be very good, but then going to play Maryland a couple of days later is going to be pretty cool,” Fraser said. “It will be interesting to go there and see what it’s like.”
Aside from having the opportunity to tip off their season, the Bears also will reap some other benefits from making the two-day journey.
While Utah might seem a bit far flung for a UMaine men’s opener, making the trip will pay return benefits for the Bears.
“It’s very difficult to get teams to return home games at Maine,” Woodward said. “Utah Valley needed a home game this year and they were willing to come back here (Orono) next year.”
Agreeing to play Maryland, despite the travel logistics, was a bit of a no-brainer. Not only does the game enable the Bears to take on high-level competition, it also comes with it a guarantee check reported to be worth between $70,000 and $80,000 that UMaine can take to the bank.
While UMaine is by no means looking past Utah Valley of the Great West Conference, having the opportunity to play the Terrapins on Sunday at the Comcast Center, also known as “The House Gary (Williams) Built,” is special.
“It’s definitely exciting,” said senior forward Sean McNally of Gardiner.
“The motivational factor is just beyond belief when you walk into a gym like that and know you’ve got that type of an opponent in front of you,” he explained. “There’s so many feeling that go along with it. They’re great games to play.”
The Bears have an extra measure of confidence in taking on a team of Maryland’s caliber after knocking off ACC member Boston College last December in Chestnut Hill.
“Beating BC last year was a big step for us because now we can go into any game, no matter who the opponent is, and actually say, ‘we can win this game. We’ve just got to play the type of basketball that we’re used to playing, that we show in practice.’”