Jim Engles understands the challenges facing University of Maine men’s basketball coach Bob Walsh better than most.
Engles took his first collegiate head coaching job at New Jersey Institute of Technology in 2008 after the Highlanders went 0-29 the previous season, their second in Division I.
Engles finished 1-30 in his debut year at NJIT, then finished 15-15 the following season — an improvement that earned him a vote for AP National Coach of the Year.
The next six years produced a 100-88 record, an upset of No. 16 Michigan during the 2014-2015 season and back-to-back trips to the CollegeInsider.com Tournament semifinals in 2015 and 2016 — enabling Engles to land his new job as head coach at Columbia University.
“I know hard this job is, I’m very sympathetic toward everybody,” said the Lions’ first-year head coach Monday after Columbia defeated UMaine 98-73. “Winning one game is hard, that’s the way I look at it, but as you build your program and you get more time and guys get more comfortable with what you’re doing, you’ll wind up riding it out as you go through it.”
The early ride has been similarly difficult for Walsh at UMaine. The start of his third season with the Black Bears has been slowed by off-season transfers and the nonconference portion of the schedule hampered by a steady flow of injuries to the likes of veterans Aaron Calixte, Troy Reid-Knight and Garet Beal of Beals Island.
But as UMaine gets set to host Vermont in its America East opener at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor on Thursday night, Walsh and his healthy players might appreciate Engles’ empathy for the team’s low body count but have no choice but attack the upcoming 16-game conference grind.
“Our guys are facing some tough challenges right now, but as I keep telling them, nobody cares,” Walsh said. “Nobody’s going to feel sorry for us.
“We’ve got to be willing able to fight for each other and fight for what’s really important to us regardless of what’s happening around us. It’s still a step this program needs to take.”
That process normally begins during practices, but recent injuries to junior guard Ilker Er and sophomore forward Ilija Stojiljkovic have left assistant coach Antone Gray to join the action on at least one occasion so the Black Bears could run 5-on-5 drills.
“One of the things that’s hard is that with limited numbers in practice there’s not as much you can do,” Walsh said. “If we only have seven or eight healthy guys practicing it’s hard to overdo it and put them in really tough spots and see how they respond, but it’s something we have to continue to get better at.
“We’ve made some really significant progress in that regard even though the results haven’t been there in wins and losses, but we still have a ways to go.”
Whether UMaine (4-11) will have to travel that path for any significant length of time without its brightest light of the season to date, three-time America East Rookie of the Week Andrew Fleming of South Paris and Oxford Hills High School, remains to be seen.
Fleming suffered a sprained ankle during the second half of Monday’s game and did not return to action. That ended a streak of three straight double-doubles for the freshman, who averages 10.6 points and a team-leading 7.0 rebounds per game.
His availability to play against Vermont had not been determined as of late Tuesday.
The Black Bears’ depth has been aided somewhat in recent days by Calixte’s return, but the UMaine tri-captain is limited in both practice and game time by the broken foot he suffered just before Thanksgiving. Calixte eventually will require surgery on his injured foot after his season ends.
Vermont was the league coaches’ preseason pick to win America East, whose nine members just compiled an overall 65-64 nonconference record. Vermont (10-5) posted the most wins of the group, but New Hampshire, Albany, Binghamton and Maryland Baltimore County were close behind with nine victories each.
“The conference is really good, I think we’ve got more nonleague wins this year than we’ve ever had,” Walsh said. “I thought maybe it might take a step back, but most of the teams in the conference have gotten better, certainly the middle and bottom half of the conference have gotten better.
“The teams in the conference know you really well. They know everything about what you do and how you run it and who your players are so the preparation is different, the competitive edge is a little different. It’s a great challenge. It’s a great league with great coaches, and we’re looking forward to Thursday.”
