The University of Maine was picked to finish ninth in the 10-team America East men’s basketball preseason poll released Thursday.
Stony Brook ended Vermont’s five-year run as the preseason conference favorite, with those teams followed by New Hampshire and reigning AE champion Hartford.
Maryland Baltimore County, UMass Lowell, Albany and the New Jersey Institute of Technology were next with UMaine ranked just ahead of last-place Binghamton.
That probably shocks few Black Bear fans given that the program is 16-56 over the last three years and played only nine games last season before opting out of the end of its schedule in mid-February due to COVID-19.
The current team also bears little resemblance to its immediate predecessor.
The 15-player roster includes nine new newcomers, and Richard Barron is the lone returning member of the coaching staff.
“Ja’Shonte [Wright-McLeish], Ata [Turgut], Steph [Ingo] and me are the only four on our team that have ever been to a basketball game at the Cross Insurance Center,” Barron said of UMaine’s home court. “That’s how much turnover and how long it’s been since we’ve been able to play there.”
With a summer of training preceding the start of formal practices at the end of September, Barron believes his current squad already is ahead of last year’s edition whose early season was delayed and then interrupted due to COVID-19 before UMaine played its first game on Dec. 19, 2020.
“The summer access makes a big difference,” he said. “The fact that we could get the guys in and get to know each other and get through some of the growing pains, the learning curve, the bumps, whatever you want to call it, was great.”
The Black Bears are scheduled to begin their season at Virginia Tech on Nov. 9, then will play their home opener against the University of Maine at Farmington on Friday, Nov. 12.
“I think we’re all hungry to get in front of our fans, to get back down to the Cross and play,” said Barron, whose team’s only two home games last winter — a split with New Hampshire on Jan. 2-3 — were played without fans at Memorial Gymnasium on the Orono campus.
“We’ve still got a lot of work to do, but it’s Oct. 21 and that’s to be expected. This is a team that every day gets a little bit better, and I think if we can stay healthy we’ve got a chance to continue to evolve.”
America East also named a preseason all-conference team led by reigning player of the year Ryan Davis of Vermont and two-time All-America East selection Elijah Olaniyi, who has returned to Stony Brook this year after playing last season at the University of Miami.
Also named to the preseason all-conference team were Jayden Martinez and Nick Guadarrama of New Hampshire, Ben Shungu of Vermont and Hartford’s Austin Williams, the most outstanding player of the 2021 America East tournament.
While UMaine was not represented on the preseason team, Barron is optimistic that his team may be represented on the end-of-season All-America East squad by Ingo, a 6-foot-9-inch redshirt junior forward from Mississauga, Ontario, who ranks as one of the conference’s top rim protectors and has continued to add to his offensive game after averaging 10.6 points, 8.6 rebounds and 2.6 blocked shots per game last winter.
“When all is said and done he’s going to be a first-team player,” Barron said. “He’s matured so much both physically and mentally during his time and it’s kind of scary to think that he’s just a sophomore in terms of eligibility.”
Conference play is set to begin on Jan. 2, 2022, with UMaine at NJIT on that date before playing its first America East home game on Jan. 6 against Hartford.
The America East tournament will start with quarterfinals on March 5. Every round of the playoffs will take place on the higher seed’s home court, with the winner of the March 12 championship game earning an automatic berth into the NCAA Division I Tournament.
“We all went through tough times last year, and we’re still dealing with the effects of COVID and the concessions that everybody makes,” Barron said.
“But we’re extremely grateful to be in the situation we’re in and we’re excited to represent the university. I think we’ll make everybody proud this year. I really do.”
