Andrew Fleming looked comfortable during the University of Maine men’s basketball preseason debut Sunday afternoon.
The senior co-captain totaled 18 points, 10 rebounds and three assists in 23 minutes as the Black Bears defeated Husson University 76-50 at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor.
But for 11 of the 15 players on the roster, the exhibition game marked a first. The freshmen donned a UMaine uniform for the first time, while four redshirt players returned to action after sitting out last season because of injury or transfer rules or for physical maturation.
“It gives you more of an appreciation for the game,” 6-foot-9 Canadian forward Stephane Ingo said.
“Just being out there and not playing, you really want to be out there so you know that when you do finally get the chance to play you won’t take it for granted,” the redshirt sophomore added.
Nedeljko Prijovic, a 6-8 redshirt junior from Serbia who sat out last season after transferring from Texas State, admitted he is still getting used to his return to active duty.
“Practice is one thing and a game is another thing,” he said. “I’ve been practicing for a while and I kind of lost feeling for the game, honestly. This was my first game in a long time and I was kind of amped up, I was a little too excited, so I made more mistakes than I usually do.”
While Prilojivic struggled at times, his redshirt mates showed flashes of why they were recruited to help jumpstart UMaine’s program.
Mykhailo Yagodin, a sharp-shooting sophomore guard from Ukraine who played in just one game last year, buried two 3-pointers. Ingo blocked three shots, two during one sequence, as evidence of his rim-protecting potential.
And 6-7 London-born sophomore Solomon Iluyomade, who suffered a season-ending injury in UMaine’s 2018-2019 opener, displayed plenty of energy while scoring six points and grabbing five rebounds in 11 minutes.
“They’re kind of a hybrid,” Barron said. “They’re players who didn’t play last year but should have some experience, some knowledge of what we do and how we expect to play.
“They’ve got great size, they’re skilled, and what we need to bring to that is discipline, he added. “If we can bring discipline to the talent we have on this roster and to the length and versatility and size and just make routine, simple plays, I think we can be very good.”
Iluyomade believes he and his redshirt teammates may have a head start on the new season with their year’s worth of knowledge about Barron’s system.
Sunday’s game offered the Black Bears their first chance to test that quest for consistency against an opponent and the results admittedly were mixed as the Black Bears committed 24 turnovers and shot just 7 of 29 from the 3-point arc against the Division III Eagles.
But for those relegated to watching from the bench as last year’s 5-27 squad struggled, the chance to experience the successes and failures of game action was a long-awaited opportunity.
“We showed some flashes today,” Yagodin said. “Sometimes we did not make our shots, but we still got good reads and as time comes we’ll get to the point when we’ll make those shots.”
It also was a reminder of why these players came to Orono in the first place — for the competition.
“I honestly think we have a good chance to be a top team in America East,” Iluyomade said. “We don’t have to be good right now, but we’re working on it.”
