Eight games into America East play, the University of Maine men’s basketball team has treated the Black Bear faithful to quite a rollercoaster ride.
Beginning with disappointing losses to reigning champs Vermont and rival New Hampshire, UMaine then secured a shootout victory over upstart Albany, before collapsing again with a loss to winless Binghamton at the Cross Center.
The drama peaked on Feb. 3 at The Pit in Orono, when the Black Bears came back to upset Bryant 79-72, surviving the first regular season round robin with a record of 3-5, good for fifth place in America East.
But the game that really matters will happen on Saturday, March 9; when the quarterfinal round of the America East conference tournament takes place. The Black Bears haven’t won a playoff game since 2004-05, and a victory would be enough for second-year head coach Chris Markwood to pack 2023-24 in as a successful season, and convince the Black Bear faithful that they are finally in good hands.
“A playoff win would mean progress, that’s the most important thing. In my mind, we obviously want more than one playoff win, but I know where this program’s been at,” Markwood said. “We’re working towards competing at a higher level, and everything out there that we want is still in front of us. We have to put ourselves in a position to do that.”
To set themselves up for a playoff victory, the Black Bears need to hold onto their No. 5 seed — in order to avoid No. 1 Vermont (8-1), No. 2 Massachusetts-Lowell (7-2) and No. 3 Bryant (7-2) in the first round. These three America East favorites each boast scoring margins of 7-plus points, and are already battling among themselves for home court advantage through the tournament.
In the first round of last year’s conference tournament, No. 2 UMass-Lowell smoked No. 7 UMaine 85-54 at the Costello Athletic Center in Lowell. Later in the conference tournament championship game, No. 1 Vermont ended up beating UMass-Lowell, punching its ticket to March Madness.
Fortunately for UMaine, fifth is exactly where they’ve been expected to finish all along this year.
As of Friday, Feb. 9, the Black Bears have the fifth-best average scoring margin through one month of Conference play (minus-1.4) and through three months of overall NCAA action (plus-1.2). Right behind UMaine in the America East standings, 3-6 Binghamton (minus-7.2) and 3-6 Albany (minus-5.7) have much shakier average scoring margins in Conference play, and aren’t expected to finish with more than five America East wins.
If UMaine can keep playing close games and maintain a respectable average scoring margin, then when the dust settles, the Black Bears can expect to be in the middle of the pack.
“That is college basketball; lots of one possession or two possession games. We gotta create our own luck in those situations down the stretch, one game at a time,” Markwood said. “We’ve lost some really tight games this year where we weren’t the most disciplined team; we kind of gave a couple away. The challenge for us is to show up with that edge on a really consistent [basis], day in and day out.”
Moreover, the Black Bears have a fairly balanced home schedule from here on out. At Memorial Gymnasium, UMaine will host Vermont on Feb. 17 and UMass-Lowell on March 5, but also lowly No. 8 Maryland-Baltimore County on Feb. 22 and No. 9 New Jersey Tech on Feb. 24. The Black Bears haven’t lost at The Pit since Nov. 12 against Merrimack, so they’ll ideally win at least two of these four home games.
“We have a really strong record in The Pit this year, and that’s a testament to this community and the fans that are coming out and supporting this group,” Markwood said. “There’s no substitute for what that kind of atmosphere brings to a game. Hopefully we can continue that and keep building on it over time.”
Before UMaine returns to The Pit on Feb. 17 to play Vermont, the Black Bears will hit the road twice, clashing with No. 4 New Hampshire (5-4) on Saturday at 7 p.m., and Bryant next Thursday, Feb. 15 at 7 p.m. UNH is coming off an 85-66 road loss to Bryant on Feb. 8.