University of Maine women’s basketball coach Richard Barron figures his team is where he thought it would be at this point in the young season.
The Black Bears will take a 3-4 record into the game against 7-0 Clemson at 5 p.m. Friday in South Carolina.
Barron said even though the record may be what he anticipated, the game results aren’t.
“I don’t know if I expected us to beat Purdue or Chattanooga, but I thought we’d do better against Harvard and Hampton,” said Barron.
UMaine beat 2015-16 NCAA tournament teams Purdue (67-47) and Tennessee-Chattanooga (49-39) but lost to Harvard (69-62) and Hampton (58-49).
Hampton was 14-17 a year ago, and Harvard was 14-14.
Barron has a virtually brand-new team with the exception of first-team All-America East point guard Sigi Koizar.
“I’ve definitely been pleased with the team’s efforts, their understanding of the system, the team morale and the chemistry,” said Barron. “It’s still very, very early.”
Koizar is the team’s leading scorer at 13.6 points per game, and the next seven scorers are all first-year players led by Laia Sole (9.9 ppg) and Blanca Millan (7.6).
Barron said Millan has done an exceptional job defensively in the matchup zone thanks to her great anticipation and hands. She leads the team in steals with 16. Sole is tops in assists (21).
Koizar is second in steals (13) and assists (17). She also is averaging 3.3 rebounds per game.
Koizar, who nailed 43.4 percent of her 3-pointers last season (85-for-196), is just at 20 percent (8-for-40) so far this season, but Barron isn’t concerned.
He said he expects her to start shooting better and that goes for the rest of the team as well.
UMaine is hitting just 37.3 percent of its field goals including 25.4 percent from beyond the 3-point arc.
“And our defense gets better when we score,” said Barron, meaning that it gives his team more time to set up its defense.
Duquesne University transfer Tanesha Sutton is fourth on the team in scoring (6.3 ppg) and the aggressive guard is second in rebounding (5.1 rpg).
Freshman Naira Caceres leads the team in rebounding (5.7 rpg) and she has scored 4.1 points per game.
Barron is looking for a better performance on the boards against Clemson after Chattanooga grabbed 18 offensive rebounds against UMaine in the 49-39 victory.
“We weren’t boxing out,” said Barron.
The Black Bears return home after playing six-straight games away from Bangor’s Cross Insurance Center for two games next week.
They host Northeastern at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday night and Dartmouth at 1 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 10.