Now that there’s a conference schedule, the University of Maine women’s and men’s basketball teams have something tangible on the horizon. The America East Conference announced its 2020-21 basketball schedules Monday morning, with play beginning Dec.19.

The Black Bears have Covid-19 testing secured, women’s basketball coach Amy Vachon said, and now wait for permission from University of Maine President Dr. Joan Ferrini-Mundy to host games and travel out of state to compete.

“We’re excited to see a schedule. We haven’t been cleared for competition yet, but it’s nice to get a schedule,” Vachon said. “It’s definitely different. At this point, that doesn’t really matter to us.”

America East’s schedule will be a full 18-game, double round robin format, with each conference school playing every other member twice. In the past, each team played every other school home and away. This season, the schedule will be weekend series, with each school hosting an opponent on back-to-back days, Saturday and Sunday. This cuts down on travel. Open weekends are built into the back end of the schedule, in case any games need to be postponed.

The Maine women open the conference season on Dec. 19 at home against Hartford, while the men play at Hartford the same day. Men’s basketball coach Richard Barron thanked the conference’s Basketball Sports Scenario Group for the work it put in developing the schedule.

“I think they looked for the safest, fairest way we could have a season,” Barron said.

Both Black Bear teams have called Bangor’s Cross Insurance Center their home court over the last few seasons. If crowds are limited or not allowed due the Covid-19 pandemic, Maine could play its home games in the on-campus Memorial Gym, lovingly known as The Pit. Neither Barron nor Vachon expressed a preference for either court in a Zoom meeting with media Monday morning.

“We’ll play where we need to play. We’re more interested in whether or not we get to play than where we play,” Barron said.

Added Vachon: “I don’t think anything’s been decided at this point.”

America East expanded to 10 members this fall with the addition of the New Jersey Institute of Technology. The Maine men will get their first look at the newcomers with a trip to New Jersey for a pair of games Jan. 9-10. The women host NJIT the same weekend. Vachon said she doesn’t know much about the new rival yet.

“I know they’re excited to be a part of our conference,” Vachon said.

The conference postseason and its format have yet to be finalized. There are too many variables to determine how the America East playoffs should look at this point, Barron said. There’s a good chance not every team will play the full 18-game conference schedule due do a Covid-19 outbreak. Time spent constructing how the league’s postseason looks now would be time poorly spent, Barron said.

“We can only control what we can control. That’s what we should be doing in any year,” Barron said.

Barron’s team is looking to improve on last season’s 9-22 record, which included a 5-11 mark in conference play and a loss to Vermont in the first round of the America East tournament. The men’s first home conference weekend will be Jan. 2-3, hosting New Hampshire.

Vachon’s team closed the season 2019-20 season with a 10-game win streak to finish 18-14 (12-4 in America East) and was set to play in the America East championship game at Stony Brook before it was canceled in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. On paper, Maine’s two toughest opponents, Stony Brook and UMass-Lowell, who the Black Bears beat in the conference semifinals March 8, will be the final two series of the regular season. Maine is set to host UMass-Lowell on Feb. 13-14, and play at Stony Brook Feb. 27-28. Vachon said it’s too early to build up those games as key to the conference race just yet.

“With Covid, you have no idea. We could maybe not have players (healthy). It’s hard to say,” Vachon said.

The Maine women are still set to play in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Challenge at Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut on Nov. 28-29, along with Mississippi State, UConn and Quinnipiac. Vachon echoed Barron’s sentiment that the only thing they can do is continue to follow safety guidelines and prepare as best they can for whatever the season brings.

“The last seven months, for all of us, has been difficult to deal with. There are things we can’t control. What we can control is how hard we work every day,” Vachon said.

 

Travis Lazarczyk — 861-9242

tlazarczyk@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @TLazarczykMTM

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