Through 10 games this season, the University of Maine men’s basketball team is playing some of its best hoops in more than a decade.
Standing at 6-4 for the second consecutive season, UMaine has returned five of its six top players, has a top-40 defense nationwide and is on track to break .500 for the first time since 2011.
But at this time last winter, the hype around UMaine suddenly came crashing down, as the Black Bears lost eight straight and ended the season with a losing record (13-17) once again.
To change the narrative surrounding UMaine men’s hoops, head coach Chris Markwood’s squad has the tough — yet manageable — task of beating some bigtime opponents in the coming weeks. To survive this midseason gauntlet, UMaine has to keep executing on defense and rely on its veterans to improve the team’s offensive output.
From Dec. 18 to Jan. 18, UMaine will battle two Power Five schools in Central Florida (5-2) and Minnesota (5-3), as well as formidable America East foes Vermont (7-2), New Hampshire (6-3) and Maryland-Baltimore County (5-5). From there, UMaine will continue conference play through the end of the regular season, and only one of the nine America East teams (New Jersey Tech) has a losing record.
Last year’s eight-game skid was fueled by five straight losses to begin conference play, and the Black Bears finished with the No. 7 seed (7-9) in the America East.
“The America East is playing good basketball,” second-year head coach Chris Markwood said. “They’re all big games.”
UMaine’s defense is allowing just 63.7 points per game (second to Vermont’s 61.4), but its average point differential (+6.5) is still fifth of nine in the America East. This discrepancy comes from its subpar output on the offensive side of the ball (70.2 PPG; eighth in America East).
Fortunately, UMaine’s returners are stepping up on offense at the right time.
Sophomore guard Jaden Clayton and senior forward Peter Filipovity have especially come into their own this season, experiencing significant upticks in their shooting percentages and shooting attempts per game.
Clayton has scored 15 points in each of UMaine’s last two games, after averaging 6.6 points through UMaine’s first eight games. Filipovity is averaging 12.4 ppg this year and averaged 9.2 last year.
“The coaches instill so much confidence in me, to be aggressive and go to the rim,” Clayton said. “I’m really starting to get that confidence within me.”
Meanwhile, fifth-year Ja’Shonte Wright-McLeish has been remarkably hot from beyond the arc, improving from 31.3 percent last year to 45.5 percent (20-for-44) so far this season. As a team, UMaine is hovering around 30 percent, so the Black Bears will rely on Wright-McLeish to pace their shooting from distance.
Last but not least, reigning NCAA steals champ Kellen Tynes has recently shown flashes of serious firepower, going for 26 points on 8-for-13 shooting against Holy Cross last week, and for 20 points on 9-for-14 shooting against North Florida on Nov. 18.
“Kellen’s a guy that can get you 20 on any given night,” Markwood said. “He’s great; he has swagger.”
Ideally, UMaine’s veterans would bear less of the offensive load, but sharpshooting transfers Okay Djamgouz (personal reasons) and AJ Lopez (shoulder) are out for the foreseeable future.
The only other Black Bears playing more than eight minutes per game are big man Adam Cisse from Manhattan College and wing Quion Burns from Long Island University. So far, they’ve combined for 8.2 points per game.
This shortage of offensive weapons was something Markwood knew he had to address this offseason, but he maintains that this roster is still much better than last year’s.
“We’re much deeper on both sides of the ball — last year, we just didn’t have enough depth to get us over the hump,” Markwood said. “We’ve got a lot of versatility in the lineup. It’s about getting the right shots for the right guys and building our confidence.”
This year, UMaine was polled to finish fifth in the America East. In 2022-23, it was expected to finish last.