The UMaine men’s basketball team is 33 days away from its first game of the season, yet the Black Bears are still unsure who their starting five will be.
Standout guards junior Kellen Tynes and sophomore Jaden Clayton cemented themselves as UMaine’s go-to guys last year, accounting for more than half the team’s steals and assists. But second-year head coach Chris Markwood is dealing with a lot of new faces and a remarkably balanced supporting cast to accompany the duo.
“Last year pretty early in the preseason we had a sense of what the starting five would be,” Markwood said. “This year our strength is going to be our depth and talent across the board, which means you have multiple guys who are starter level talents.”
UMaine’s depth has created healthy competition in practice, but the clock is ticking for the Black Bears to sort out who could potentially start. Markwood has been working with the team since midsummer, but no one aside from Tynes and Clayton has fully separated themselves from the pack yet.
There’s reliable returners Kristians Feierbergs and Ja’Shonte Wright-McLeish, hard-nosed freshmen guards Isaac Bonilla and Logan Carey, the sharpshooting grad transfer Okay Djamgouz from Drake University and many others, all who could potentially emerge as UMaine’s key guys this fall.
“We have a really talented team,” Tynes, the reigning NCAA Division I steals champ, said. “The freshmen are smart, and the transfers have experience and are hungry to play. It’s going to be tough this year for coach — we have a lot of guys that can play.”
Under Markwood, UMaine’s men’s basketball team improved from 6-23 to 13-17 in one season, finishing with its best record since 2010 -11. The next hurdle is breaking .500, and the Black Bears lost a lot of close games last year, including four within five points and twice in overtime.
UMaine sometimes required too much from a few key players, with four guys averaging at least 30 minutes per game, including its leading scorer Gedi Juozapaitis, who graduated this offseason. Markwood acknowledged the team needs to better complement Tynes and Clayton.
“For Kellen, Jaden and those guys to finish out games at a high level, their minutes need to come down,” Markwood said. “We didn’t have enough depth to get us over the hump.”
Figuring out who the other five or six key players will be is a complicated, arduous process. A lot of Markwood’s decision hinges on his players’ abilities to get comfortable in his system, and UMaine’s returners have the head start.
“To win at a high level you have to have guys out there you can count on to execute when the lights are on,” Markwood said. “Now that doesn’t happen for everyone at the same time. Young guys obviously might take a little longer but might get there a little later in the year.”
At face value, Markwood would be best off with a starting five of just returners. But the peak potentials of UMaine’s two freshmen (Bonilla and Carey) and five transfers (Djamgouz, Quion Burns, A.J. Lopez, Adam Cisse and Bryce Lausier) are relatively unknown. Moreover, three of UMaine’s vets were hampered by injuries last year (Feierbergs, Novak Perovic and John Shea) and could have breakout seasons now that they’re fully healthy.
It will be up to everyone on the roster to prove to the coaching staff this next month that they’re a top seven or eight guy on the team.
“Everyone’s going their hardest,” junior forward Feierbergs said. “Especially [in] October — that’s the month where everybody’s trying to show they can play. You have to show what you’re capable of.”
Despite being new to Markwood’s system, the rookies and transfers are confident that they can distinguish themselves.
“It definitely has been an adjustment. The offense and the defense are the complete opposite from what we did at Drake,” Djamgouz said. “I’m used to the competition [though], and for me, I have to just play my role. Humbly, I think I’m one of the best shooters in the country — I just have to be a good positional defender and teammate.”
Djamgouz shot 52 percent from the 3-point line last year as a redshirt junior at Drake, on roughly two shots per game. Marksmanship was one of Markwood’s most sought after qualities this offseason, considering Tynes’ 30 percent and Clayton’s 26 percent clips from three last year.
Freshman Logan Carey of St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, echoed Djamgouz’s sentiments.
“It was a little hard at the beginning, but it’s been a great transition,” Carey said. “Obviously we have two great guards, so I really want to pound in my role as a strong point guard figure off the bench.”
UMaine will begin its 2022-23 campaign on the road, against the University of North Carolina at Charlotte 49ers on Nov. 6. It will then host home games at The Pit in Orono against UMaine-Presque Isle and Merrimack on Nov. 8 at 6 p.m. and Nov. 12 at 4 p.m., respectively.
The Black Bears will play most of their home games at The Pit this season, but will play rival University of New Hampshire at the Cross Insurance Center on Jan. 11 at 6 p.m., as well as Binghamton University on Jan. 27 at 2 p.m.
