The University of Maine women’s basketball team is entering some unfamiliar territory on Saturday afternoon.
Only two years ago the Black Bears, bruised and shaken after their team bus crashed in Massachusetts, did not attend the conference tournament in Albany, New York.
A year ago, the Black Bears were seeded fourth and knocked out by Hartford 63-62 in overtime.
Otherwise, UMaine’s only postseason experience includes the two games in last season’s College Basketball Invitational, in which the Black Bears went 1-1.
This time around, coach Richard Barron’s team, which shared the conference regular-season title with three-time defending champion Albany, is the top seed for the America East Women’s Basketball Championship. That hasn’t happened since 2005, when UMaine was upset by No. 8 Boston University.
UMaine (22-7) opens the eight-team tournament when it faces host Binghamton University (4-25), the No. 8 seed, in a quarterfinal matchup at noon Saturday at the Events Center in Vestal, New York.
With a victory, UMaine would advance to Sunday’s 2 p.m. semifinal against the winner of Saturday’s 2:15 p.m. matchup between fourth-seeded New Hampshire (17-11) and No. 5 Hartford (14-16).
The semifinal winners then play for the America East title and an automatic NCAA bid on 4:30 p.m. Friday, March 13, on the home court of the highest remaining seed.
The Black Bears begin postseason play after having their 14-game winning streak halted in Sunday’s 61-47 loss at New Hampshire in their mutual regular-season finale. It clearly was not the way UMaine had hoped to go into the tournament.
“It was our worst game of the year, at least the worst game since the beginning of the year going back to Bryant and UMass,” Barron said.
“We were not ourselves, and watching it on film made that very, very obvious,” he added.
Senior guard Courtney Anderson of Greene said New Hampshire played extremely well, but that did not account for UMaine’s struggles across the board.
“Our offense didn’t go very well, people weren’t being aggressive,” she said, pointing out that the Black Bears’ defense also had trouble stopping the Wildcats.
UMaine returned to practice and got refocused this week before heading to New York.
“Things happen best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out,” Barron said. “We have to make sure that we take this and learn from it and play better.”
UMaine has not won an America East quarterfinal game since 2004, when the Black Bears won the championship and advanced to the NCAA tournament.