ORONO, Maine — It’s the grand jigsaw puzzle faced by basketball coaches everywhere at this time of year: finding the right combinations to start or come off the bench to maximize production.
For University of Maine men’s basketball coach Bob Walsh, the allotment of starting berths and minutes remain a work in progress as the Black Bears prepare for Saturday’s game at Dartmouth.
Walsh admittedly has faced some difficult circumstances this fall.
Five players who were expected back transferred out of the program, while three others who expected to play significant roles — including starting junior point guard Aaron Calixte and senior swingman Garet Beal of Beals Island, both captains, and senior guard Troy Reid Knight — are sidelined by injuries.
That left Walsh and his staff to juggle the available players. During the team’s 3-6 start, 10 players have started at least one game and seven have started four games or more.
All that mixing and matching may have hit on something in UMaine’s 55-53 victory over Holy Cross on Wednesday night.
The starting combination of guards Ryan Bernstein, Danny Evans and Austin Howard, and forwards Andrew Fleming and Ilija Stojiljkovic helped UMaine build a double-digit halftime lead.
A reserve corps featuring Ilker Er and Wes Myers, the team’s leading scorers who came off the bench for the first time, made some big baskets late in the game as UMaine held off a Holy Cross rally and halted a five-game losing streak against Division I opponents.
“We made some changes, and Ilker comes off the bench and really helps us and Wes comes off the bench and has the big basket late,” Walsh said. “And the guys that started got us off to a great start.”
Many of the recent lineup moves were made to increase the team’s defensive intensity after UMaine yielded an average of 87 points in losses to Central Connecticut (82-61) and Duke (94-55).
“We went down to Duke, and it was a great experience for all of us, but I don’t want to be a program that celebrates playing hard and losing,” Walsh said.
The new rotations and some defense-for-offense substitutions frustrated Holy Cross’s top scorers at times and limited an opponent that had averaged 22 3-point attempts to a 2-of-11 effort from beyond the arc.
While the Crusaders focused more on getting back defensively, UMaine outrebounded them 41-24 and surrendered only one offensive board.
Bernstein shot over the top of Holy Cross’s zones, making four 3’s to facilitate an early lead, while Er had two key 3’s later to thwart a comeback and Myers scored a key basket that restored a five-point cushion.
UMaine’s offensive chemistry was reflected in its 17 assists on 18 field goals.
“The guys we put out there were the guys who the (previous) two days in practice just showed a real hunger, a real toughness and I thought they got us off to a great start,” Walsh said.
