Standing on the sideline at Newman Gymnasium in Bangor last Sunday, Dan Kane tried to fight the feelings of deja vu.
The head coach of the men’s basketball team at the University of Maine at Presque Isle saw the Owls give up an eight-point lead to Husson University in the North Atlantic Conference semifinals.
The game headed to overtime tied at 64 — a year and a day after UMaine Farmington sank UMPI’s championship hopes in the same gym with a game-winning shot in the final seconds of double overtime in the conference quarterfinals.
“In my head, I’m like, ‘not again,’” Kane said.
If he thought it, he didn’t show it. But some of his players hung their heads.
“I went right up to them and got their heads up and I’m like, ‘Guys, this is awesome,’” Kane said. “‘You’re playing in overtime. This is going to be so great when we win.’”
And they did — 78-74 — to punch the Owls’ first ticket to the NAC Championship with a spot in their first NCAA tournament in any sport on the line.
It’s both the biggest game in the history of the university, founded in 1903, and right where the Owls thought they would be, even as they careened into the new year with 10 losses in their first 12 games.
“Most people probably didn’t expect us to get to this point. We always did,” junior forward Doug McCalla said. “That’s the one thing about our team. Most people would call us delusional, but that’s what got us to this point.”
‘So what? … Win anyways.’
Last year was a breakthrough season. They had 20 wins, the winningest regular season in program history, and they were the No. 2 seed in the NAC East. A team that had middled around .500 since joining the conference in 2018 looked like it had found its spark.
Instead, it ended in heartbreak.
“That was devastating,” said Kane, who is also UMPI’s athletic director. “Such a great season and just a really bad ending.”
Farmington’s Beavers have ended UMPI’s playoff runs in five consecutive seasons. On Saturday, with the NAC Championship on the line, they’ll have the chance to do it again.
Kane is all too familiar with Farmington. It’s where he played three seasons of basketball, was the sixth man on the school’s 2010 NAC Championship team and spent the first four years of his coaching career.
If it wasn’t for the Beavers — and Terion Moss, a Division I transfer and 2018 Mr. Maine Basketball — Kane figures his Owls would have been here earlier. Moss graduated in 2023, but torched UMPI for 33 points in two consecutive tournament games.
This year, the Beavers are the conference’s top seed, finishing the regular season 21-5 with just one loss in NAC play.
The Owls, on the other hand, suffered more losses in the first month of this season than they did in the entire previous regular season. They started the new year riding a seven-game losing streak, including a near-40-point loss at Farmington.
Then McCalla checked in. The versatile forward and defensive stalwart tore his ACL, MCL and meniscus last January. Since he returned to the court last month, the Owls have gone 14-2, including playoff wins over Thomas College and Husson.
McCalla played 42 minutes in UMPI’s semifinal victory and held Husson’s leading scorer to 14 points.
“When Doug stepped on the court for the first practice back from winter break, there was a different feeling in the gym,” Kane said. “Guys were more excited. Doug coming back was the biggest turning point of our season.”
Around the same time, some of the team’s newcomers found their footing.
Tariq Martin, a JUCO transfer, became a magnet on the glass — a difficult task as a 6-foot, 1-inch guard. Tyson Enget, from a JUCO in North Dakota, is “Mr. Big Shot,” as Kane put it. “He’s been a major X factor for us.” AJ Creech, who transferred from the University of Maine at Fort Kent, has worked his way into the starting lineup. Yuki Ishibashi, originally from Japan, has exploded for huge shooting performances.
“All these guys, they stepped up big time, especially in the second semester for us,” Akhe McMichael, UMPI’s leading scorer, said.
McMichael, a first team all-conference player last season, shifted to point guard this season and has become a dominant force in all facets. He leads the Owls in points, assists, rebounds, steals and blocks.
“He’s one of the most talented players I’ve ever played with, and I’ve played with NBA players,” McCalla said. “I’ve been saying that he’s the best player in the conference.”
It will take all of those players for UMPI to win a NAC championship against a team that has long had their number.
Two weeks ago, UMPI shot 29% to a large first half deficit at SUNY Cobbleskill. The team wasn’t getting calls it thought it deserved. The game could have spiraled in the final 20 minutes.
“We had a heated halftime down by 15 and I said, ‘So what? You don’t like the calls? Win anyways. You don’t make the shot? So what? Get a stop. Win anyways,’” Kane said.
The Owls outscored the Fighting Tigers by 20 in the second half and won the game.
They repeated that mantra Sunday heading into overtime against Husson, after a series of “not smart plays” put their season on the line.
That’s what they carry into Saturday’s championship game, at 1 p.m. in Farmington’s Dearborn Gymnasium: the memories of their recent history with the Beavers, a marked turnaround this season and a handful of players that believe another program-defining moment isn’t out of reach.
“I think it’s big for our school, regardless of what happens,” Kane said. “But getting a team to the NCAA Tournament, not every school in the nation has done that, so that would be really big for us.”