When the University of Maine men’s basketball team will play its first game of the 2020-21 season hinges largely on the state of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But the Black Bears already have their leadership group intact with redshirt senior Nedeljko Prijovic, redshirt junior Solomon Iluyomade and redshirt sophomore Stephane Ingo selected as team captains.
“I am looking forward to working with these three fine leaders,” said Richard Barron, UMaine’s third-year head men’s basketball coach. “We have a roster full of people of high character, and they selected these three to help guide us forward this year. All three understand that while it is an honor, it is also a big responsibility. I am confident that they will work well together and meet those expectations.”
Prijovic, a 6-foot-8-inch wing forward from Belgrade, Serbia, is the team’s top returning scorer. He ranked third on the squad last winter, averaging 10.7 points per game while shooting 42 percent from the field, 33 percent from beyond the 3-point arc and 73 percent from the free-throw line during his first season of action on the Orono campus after transferring from Texas State.
Prijovic also was a versatile defensive player, ranking 12th in America East with 34 steals while also blocking 21 shots, second-best on the team.
The former Lee Academy postgraduate came on strong late during the 2019-20 season for the Black Bears. Prijovic averaged a team-high 19.5 points along with 6.3 rebounds and 2.0 steals during UMaine’s final four contests.
Iluyomade, a 6-foot-7 forward from London, England, has been a profile in perseverance for the UMaine program since suffering a knee injury during his first game with the Black Bears two years ago after transferring from Laramie County Community College in Wyoming.
He missed the rest of 2018-19 campaign before returning to the active roster in January 2020 and seeing mostly limited duty in 11 games last season. Iluyomade scored a season-high six points against UMass Lowell in just nine minutes and hopes to increase his workload this winter after a successful offseason of rehabilitation.
Ingo, a 6-9 forward from Mississauga, Ontario, reflects the youth on an 18-player UMaine preseason roster that includes six sophomores and seven freshmen.
The onetime Gould Academy of Bethel standout played in 30 of UMaine’s 31 contests as a redshirt freshman last year and started 13 games — including the last 12 of the season.
Ingo began to emerge as a top rim protector for the Black Bears against the University of Connecticut last December when he blocked five shots in 34 minutes of play to become the first UMaine player with five blocks in a game since Mike Allison in January 2013.
By the end of the season Ingo ranked third in America East with 1.3 blocks per outing and a team-high total of 40.
Ingo also developed into a top rebounder with an average of 11.8 boards to go with 8.3 points over the Black Bears’ final five games of last season.
When it is able to play this season, UMaine will seek to build upon last year’s 9-22 finish, which included a 5-11 record in America East play. Of UMaine’s 11 regular-season conference losses, nine came by an average of 6.6 points.
