Men’s Basketball
MAINE vs. NEW HAMPSHIRE
Time, site: 7 p.m. Tuesday, Lundholm Gymnasium, Durham, New Hampshire
Records: UMaine 5-25 (3-12 America East), New Hampshire 4-24 (2-13)
Series, last meeting: UMaine leads 108-73, UMaine 62-53 on 2/3/2019
Key players, UMaine: 6-5 G Isaiah White (13.5 points, 3.7 rebounds per game), 6-4 G Sergio El Darwich (10.4 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 3.1 apg), 6-8 F Vilgot Larsson (7.0 ppg, 3.9 rpg), 6-8 C Vincent Eze (6.8 ppg, 4.2 rpg); New Hampshire: 6-0 G Jordan Reed (10.3 ppg, 2.9 rpg), 6-5 G Josh Hopkins (9.4 ppg), 6-5 G Nick Guadarrama (7.8 ppg, 5.4 rpg), 6-3 G Marque Maultsby (5.9 ppg)
Game notes: Little drama remains for this regular-season finale save for some border bragging rights. New Hampshire’s 56-53 loss at Maryland Baltimore County clinched the eighth and final America East playoff spot for UMaine by virtue of the Black Bears having more conference road wins (2) than the Wildcats (1). The Retrievers rallied from an 18-point deficit in the final 13 minutes for a 56-53 homecourt win. UMaine is coming off an 83-60 loss in its final home game against Binghamton on Saturday, but the Black Bears got a huge effort from one of its four graduating seniors as Eze had a career-high 22 points to go with 11 rebounds. Eze has averaged 18.5 points and 8.0 rebounds in the past two games. Larsson scored a career-high 23 points, and El Darwich added 18 in the Black Bears’ earlier victory over UNH. UMaine plays its America East quarterfinal at 7 p.m. Saturday at top-seeded Vermont (23-6, 13-2 AE). This is the fourth straight year the Black Bears have faced the Catamounts in the opening round. UMaine seeks to end a 14-game postseason losing streak since its AE quarterfinal victory over Boston University on March 5, 2005.