The University of Maine mens and womens basketball are set to open up their regular season schedules this weekend.
The UMaine womens team will host a tip off tournament at Memorial Gymnasium (The Pit) on the Maine campus both Friday and Saturday. The Bears open up with Tulane Friday night at 6 p.m. The other teams in the field are Harvard and Dayton. Maine, depending on Fridays result, will play either the winner or loser of Dayton-Harvard in what will be the third place or championship game Saturday at 4 p.m.
Maine comes off an 18-16 campaign in 2016-17, losing to Albany in the America East title game for a second straight season. Maine returns four of their top six scorers in Blana Millan, Tenesha Sutton, Fanny Wadling, and Julie Brosseau. Also returning is junior guard Parise Rossignol, who was away from the program for a year. Maddy McVicar hopes to make more of an impact at guard in her third season, while freshman guard Dor Saar from Isreal will most likely get most of the playing time.
The Maine mens basketball team also begins their new season Friday night, when they travel to Boston College to tipoff with the Eagles out of the ACC at 7:30 p.m.
Maine went 7-25 a year ago, but do return some big contributors from last season. Andrew Fleming, Aaron Calixte, and Ilker Er return to the lineup, while Dusan Majstorovic also hopes to make an impact after sitting out last season due to transfer eligibility rules. Celio Araujo, Trae Bryant, Vernon Lowndes Jr., and Isaiah White all will make their Black Bear debuts as well.
Eastern Maine Sports will have you covered via our twitter page on live scoring updates from both mens and womens games Friday, and also the womens game Saturday. Also recaps will be available on the Facebook page as well.
