After playing the nation’s 25th-toughest schedule, which included games against current No. 4 Mississippi State, No. 5 South Carolina and No. 14 Miami, the University of Maine women’s basketball team turns its attention to the America East schedule beginning with Wednesday night’s game at the University of Vermont.
UMaine will enter the game with a 7-8 record and head coach Richard Barron is seeking a lot more from his youthful Black Bears, who may be without standout all-conference point guard and leading scorer Sigi Koizar (leg injury).
Vermont is 3-9.
UMaine has lost three in a row and Barron said “nobody is playing well.”
“We aren’t playing up to expectations. We aren’t close to where we should be,” said the Black Bear coach, whose team has shared the America East regular season title with eventual tournament champion Albany the past two seasons.
Barron feels his team has more than enough talent to be a dominant team in America East, saying, “We could be really good.”
But they have to improve in all areas, he said.
“We’ve got to get more interior scoring, we’ve got to have better shot selection, we’ve got to shoot better and we’ve got to do a better job creating tempo,” he said.
UMaine is averaging just 57.6 points per game on 40 percent shooting from the floor and 29.6 percent shooting from beyond the 3-point arc. The Black Bears are also getting outrebounded 36.1-31.9.
Turnovers, assists, steals and blocked shots are virtually equal with their opponents.
Defensively, Barron said his team has to pressure the ball more efficiently and box out under the boards to prevent teams from generating second- and third-chance opportunities.
Barron took on a demanding non-conference schedule to prepare his Black Bears for the 16 conference games that comprise the rest of the docket. And they have played only four home games.
“It was a tougher schedule than any other team in our league played, but we won’t know if it paid off until the end of the year,” said Barron.
UMaine will open its America East home schedule on Saturday at noon against the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, which is currently 5-8.