Blind Zebra

Maine takes on Brown University in their home opener tonight. Maine is 0-2 entering the contest with a close loss to Holy Cross their last time out. Brown is 1-1 losing to CCSU and defeating conference foe Binghamton. Brown lives by the 3-ball 20-50 in 2 games. 6'8 junior forward Tucker Halpern is a very difficult matchup for Maine's big guys, as he likes to step out and shoot the long ball. He was 5 for 10 against CCSU. Brown's leading scorer through 2 games is 6'5 swingman Matt Sullivan, averaging 18 ppg. The Brown Bears have an effective center in Rafael Maia at 6'9 230 who can score on the block and has the length and foot speed to bother Ali Fraser. Sean McGonagil is a nifty point guard who makes them go. The boys from Providence are money from the line at 77%. Brown's weaknesses are a lack of depth (only 11 players on the roster), along with some shortcomings on the defensive end of the floor. Maine needs to make this a wide open game, wearing down Brown, through pressure defense, attacking Brown from all angles on offense. The Black Bears must play tight man to man defense and lock down the shooters making them drivers. Maine must get more production from Justin Edwards, who has yet to make an impact and comes off a dreadful 1-16 effort against Holy Cross. The Black Bears also need some more bench production from the likes of Till Gloger, Zarko Valjarevic and Leon Cooper.

umainesuperfan

i thought that cooper looked like a servicable backup PG but i didn't like he and pollard on the floor at the same time. thought someone else could have provided better minutes there.

THE802

semi off topic but anybody know if former Brown HC Jesse Agel landed another coaching gig?

VT Cats Fan

I heard Sharon Dawley hired him as her assistant at UMass ;-)

Alumni96

Maine down 38-31 at home to Brown. I'm wondering if this is some sort of experiment to see exactly what it takes to get Ted Woodward fired?

mainejeff

I think that this WILL be it for Mr. Woo-Woo! Abbott is looking at moving basketball games to the new arena in Bangor next season. No better time to get rid of this POS than after this season........new coach, new arena, new hope. That's my take on it going into 2013-2014.

Alumni96

Maine loses at home to Brown 70-68. Maybe Maine is trying some reverse psychology this year and they'll be good come conference season?

THE802

LOL!

Blind Zebra

One can only hope! Another tough loss with Seton Hall and Siena looming. I liked the effort tonight, but they need to clean up the turnover issues and problems with post defense. Maia ate Maine alive for 21 points and put Fraser in foul trouble early. Maine is giving up too many paint buckets through the first 3 games.

UVM Hoop Cat

Tough loss for Maine. Does not get easy for them- they needed a couple of these first 3. Next games are:

@ Seton Hall
Siena
@ Northeastern
@Duquesne
Fisher (Sub-D1)
@ Florida State


They might be staring at 1-8 with lone win over a Sub D1.

__________________
"Let's win this game for all the small schools that never had a chance to get here"
- Hoosiers,
& UVM mens basketball NCAA's 2005

mainejeff

Hopefully if we ever want a shot at getting rid of Woodward!

goBing

call me crazy, but doing bad during OCC might help Maine. Usually they do good during OCC then they fall apart during Conference play. Maybe the opposite is happening.

ccd494

Where are they going to get the money for that? Doesn't Woodward have two years left? His salary may be less than Whitehead's, but if you have to buy out two years, that's in the ballpark of what it would cost to get rid of Whitehead. And I've gotta believe that they will do something about the revenue generating sport before basketball.

Blind Zebra

It is my understanding that Woodward's deal is a series of 3 consecutive 1 year contracts. It is not a guaranteed 3 year. Maine could decide not to re-sign him following the season and not have to buy him out.