When Stephane Ingo was recognized before last winter’s University of Maine men’s basketball Senior Night game, he wasn’t sure about his athletic future.
The 6-foot-9-inch, 200-pound forward from Mississauga, Ontario, was nearing the end of his fourth year on campus and third season of basketball with the Black Bears, having established himself as one of the top interior defenders in America East.
But UMaine’s program also was in transition.
Head coach Richard Barron and the Black Bears had just parted ways and a search was beginning for his successor while top assistant Jai Steadman served as interim coach for a team that ultimately finished 6-23 overall and 3-15 in America East.
Now the two-time AE All-Academic selection is poised to graduate in May with a double-major in business finance and business management but still has two years of athletic eligibility remaining, in part thanks to an extra year granted to student-athletes by the NCAA due to COVID-19.
So Ingo opted to enter the NCAA’s transfer portal after UMaine’s season ended, and he’s verbally committed to continue his athletic and academic pursuits at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York.
“I wanna also thank the University of Maine for taking a chance on me and being my home for the last 4 years,” he wrote on social media. “My time as a Black Bear was nothing short of unforgettable and I’m thankful for the lifelong friendships I’ve made.
“With that being said I’d like to announce that I’ll be continuing my academic and athletic career at Marist College. Thank you to Coach [John] Dunne and his staff for the opportunity!”
A Marist University spokesperson said he was not yet able to comment on Ingo’s status.
Ingo is one of at least two members of the 2021-22 UMaine team expected to play elsewhere next winter, while another player from the portal already is reported to be joining the Black Bears under new head coach Chris Markwood.
Also leaving the team is junior guard Vukasin Masic, who will play next season across the country at the University of Portland, which finished 19-16 overall last winter and 7-8 in the West Coast Conference.
Masic started 25 games at UMaine last season after transferring from Hofstra and averaged 9.3 points, 4.1 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game. He has three years of eligibility remaining.
“Vuk was a highly sought-after player in the transfer portal,” Portland head coach Shantay Legans said. “He can really shoot it but also has the ability to make plays off the dribble and get to the rim. He has great vision as a passer and is a pretty good athlete as well. We think Vuk will be a perfect fit for our style of play and our fans are going to really enjoy watching him compete.”
Gedi Juozapaitis, a 6-foot-4 senior wing from Georgia Southern, has verbally committed to join the Black Bears, according to Stadium and VerbalCommits.com. Juozapaitis averaged 7.5 points and 2.2 rebounds per game last season for the Eagles, who finished 13-16 overall and 5-11 in the Sun Belt Conference. The London native shot 34 percent on 3-pointers and 96 percent (23 of 24) from the free-throw line while averaging 25 minutes per game.
Ingo will join a Marist team that finished 14-16 overall and 9-14 in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference last winter.
A wrist injury limited Ingo to 17 of UMaine’s 29 games last winter. He averaged 7.3 points, 5.9 rebounds and 2.5 blocked shots per game, and his blocked-shots average would have led America East had he played in enough games to be listed in the conference rankings. Max Brooks of UMass Lowell led the league with 2.3 blocks per game.
Ingo, Masic and Juozapaitis are among more than 1,250 men’s Division I college basketball players to have entered the transfer portal as of April 21, according to basketball insider Jeff Goodman of Stadium, a digital television and internet sports network.
That’s approximately four players for each of the NCAA’s 358 Division I teams, including 43 players from America East schools.
Other UMaine players reported by Goodman and VerbalCommits.com to be in the transfer portal are junior guards Ja’Shonte Wright-McLeish and Maks Klanjscek, though a new report by basketball insider Jake Liberman said Wright-McLeish — who also was recognized before UMaine’s Senior Night game — had withdrawn from the portal.
That would make him the second UMaine player to withdraw from the portal, following freshman guard Sam Ihekwoaba. The five-time America East Rookie of the Week and AE All-Rookie Team selection originally entered the transfer portal in late March but then withdrew and plans to return to the Orono campus next season to play for Markwood.
Among other America East schools, the Stadium listing has the University of New Hampshire and Binghamtom each with eight players in the transfer portal as of April 21, followed by Maryland Baltimore County (5), Vermont (4), UMass Lowell (4), New Jersey Institute of Technology (4), Albany (3) and Stony Brook (3).
Stony Brook is moving to the Colonial Athletic Association next season, to be replaced in America East by Bryant University of Smithfield, Rhode Island. Bryant has been active in the transfer portal, according to the Stadium listing, already adding seven players from other Division I schools to its roster.
