The University of Albany’s Great Danes, who upset the University of Maine 56-47 at the Memorial Gym in the America East championship game last season, are the favorites to win the league title this year while UMaine has been picked second in the preseason coaches poll.
Albany received 59 points and seven first-place votes. UMaine had 54 points but didn’t receive any first-place votes. Vermont was next with 46 points and one first-place vote.
Rounding out the poll were the New Jersey Institute of Technology (42), Binghamton (39, 1 first-place vote), UMass Lowell (27), New Hampshire and first-year conference member Bryant (tied with 21), and the University of Maryland Baltimore County (15).
Coaches were not allowed to vote for their own teams.
UMaine senior guard Anne Simon, the league’s reigning Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year, was chosen to the All-America East preseason team along with Albany senior forward Helene Haegerstrand and junior guard Kayla Cooper, Vermont senior guard Emma Utterback and junior forward Anna Olsen, and Binghamton senior guard Denai Bowman.
Guard Paula Gallego (3.1 points, 2.4 rebounds) was chosen to the All-Rookie team.
Albany returns all five starters and its top nine scorers from last year’s team, which went 23-10 overall and 13-5 in conference play.
UMaine was 20-12 a year ago under four-time America East Coach of the Year Amy Vachon. The Black Bears were 15-3 in league play to annex their fourth regular season title in five years.
Vachon said the Great Danes are the best team in the league.
“There’s no question about that. They have everybody back and they won the championship last year. They’re the team to beat,” Vachon said.
The Black Bears lost two All-America East players in point guard Alba Orois, a third-team selection, and forward Maeve Carroll, a two-time second team choice.
Carroll — a career 1,000-point scorer — averaged 10.9 points, a league-high 8.6 rebounds and 3.4 assists a year ago, and Orois led the conference in assists with 5.8 per game to go with 9.9 points.
Simon, the league’s top scorer with 16 points per game, and junior guard Caroline Bornemann, who averaged 8.2 points and 4.2 rebounds, are the only returnees who averaged more than 18.5 minutes of playing time per game.
Despite the losses of Orois and Carroll and the fact she has only two returning players who started more than 20 games a year ago in Simon (32) and Bornemann (30), she feels her team deserves its preseason ranking.
She said it would have been “disrespectful” if they had been picked any lower than second.
“We’ve been to the championship game seven years in a row. We have the Player of the Year and two other starters back and we’ve proven that we’re a pretty good program and we can compete,” Vachon said. “I think the coaches respect our program and what we’ve done. We expect to be at the top every year.”
She expected Albany to receive most of the first-place votes but the fact UMaine didn’t receive any will serve as motivation for her team.
“I can see Vermont getting one of the votes but there was another one out there,” Vachon said.
Albany coach Colleen Mullen, who couldn’t vote for her own team, said she voted for Vermont although she said it was a toss-up between Vermont and UMaine.
She considers UMaine to be a legitimate title contender.
“Amy has proven to be one of the best coaches in the league and, in my opinion, in the country,” Mullen said. “She does more with less and she has built the program into a perennial powerhouse. She knows how to develop players.”
Mullen also said UMaine plays a grueling non-conference schedule that prepares them well for the conference games.
The Black Bears incoming class includes Skowhegan’s Jaycie Christopher, who was chosen Miss Maine Basketball and the Gatorade Player of the Year, and Windham’s Sarah Tallon.
Both were first team Bangor Daily News All-Maine Schoolgirl Basketball choices.
Vachon said her biggest concern is the team’s lack of depth in the post.
“We will be working on that all year. We have to figure out different ways to guard and attack and we need to make that an advantage for us. We have some talented post players but we aren’t deep there.”
She said she has talented guards who have gotten stronger during the offseason.
“There’s a lot of competition for playing time right now,” Vachon said.
UMaine opens at James Madison University on Nov. 7.