BANGOR, Maine — The next-man-up mentality of modern team sports allows little sympathy for those whose bodies break down during the heat of competition.
So as both the injuries and losses mount for the University of Maine men’s basketball team, third-year coach Bob Walsh and any Black Bears healthy enough to take the court must regroup quickly as conference play looms.
“Our guys are facing some challenges now, but as I tell the guys, ‘No one cares. No one’s going to feel sorry for us,’” said Walsh late Monday afternoon after UMaine suffered its fifth straight defeat, a 98-73 decision to Columbia at the Cross Insurance Center.
“It was disappointing because I thought the competitive spirit that we’ve had really since we got back from Duke for the most part has been very good and we continue to face challenges and have different guys in and out of the lineup and a lot of injuries.
“But they don’t put any asterisks after games regarding guys who missed or guys who didn’t play and there’s no accommodations at the end of the year for misfortune.”
UMaine (4-11) was without four injured rotational players, seniors Garet Beal and Troy Reid-Knight, who have not seen action this season, as well as leading 3-point shooter Ilker Er (ACL) and sophomore forward Ilija Stokiljkovic (ankle).
In addition, junior point guard Aaron Calixte recently returned for limited duty as he plays on a broken foot that eventually will require surgery.
The latest injury victim is freshman forward Andrew Fleming of South Paris, who earlier Monday was named America East Rookie of the Week for the second straight week and third time this season.
Already playing through illness, Fleming went down with a right ankle injury with 17:41 left in the game and UMaine trailing 56-43. He was helped off the court and watched the rest of the game from behind the Black Bears’ bench — with his availability for Thursday’s America East opener against Vermont uncertain.
While UMaine pulled within 56-48 on two Wes Myers free throws in the immediate aftermath of Fleming’s injury, the Black Bears couldn’t get enough defensive stops to rally further against a Columbia team that had lost its last two games and five of its previous six.
“Today was a step backwards,” Walsh said. “Columbia is a good team and if you’re not ready to guard them properly they’re going to score a lot of points and they scored a lot of points.”
Luke Petrasek, a 6-foot-10 senior forward and one of a handful of Columbia frontcourt players as tall or taller than Maine’s tallest, led the Ivy League’s Lions with 22 points, seven rebounds and three steals. Freshman point guard Mike Smith added 21 points while classmate Jack Killingsworth scored 12.
“I thought we executed really well offensively,” said first-year Columbia head coach Jim Engles. “I thought we shot the ball very well. We passed the ball extremely well. It was good to see us play efficient basketball.”
Freshman guard Danny Evans paced Maine with 16 points and five rebounds, while senior forward Marko Pirovic had 13 points and Myers scored 10.
Columbia (5-7) took control during a stretch midway through the first half when the Lions made 6 of 9 3-point tries to turn an 11-10 deficit into a 32-18 lead on a Smith trifecta with 9:22 left in the period.
UMaine’s halftime deficit was 49-39 despite the Black Bears shooting 50 percent from the field and dishing out 12 assists on their 14 first-half baskets.
“The defense really hurt us, but we had 11 turnovers in the first half and they made eight 3’s,” said Walsh. “We didn’t have any turnovers in the kicking game, but other than that it was a pretty poor performance.”
Fleming scored on a give-and-go with 6-foot-8 Vincent Eze and Austin Howard hit a jumper as UMaine pulled within 49-43 less than two minutes into the second half, but Columbia countered with a 7-0 run just before Fleming’s injury and went on to register a season-high in points.
“Our offense was pretty good early in the second half, we got inside their zone and got some good looks when we cut it to six,” said Walsh. “But our inability to really guard them or make them uncomfortable doing anything on the defensive end was going to come back to haunt us.”
