Washington basketball returns home to face Maine

Washington basketball is back at home for the first of seven straight at the Alaska Airlines Arena

Washington basketball has a new foe tonight, the University of Maine Black Bears, who own a record of 1-2 heading into tonight’s matchup. Their most recent loss came Saturday night against the University of Portland Pilots.

The Black Bears play in the American East conference where they finished with a conference record of 3-13, and an overall record of 6-26. They’re in a rebuilding stage under head coach Richard Barron, who’s in his second year with the team.

Very much like the Huskies so far the Black Bears play their starting five for most of the game. They start three forwards and two guards. At one forward spot is Andrew Fleming, a senior who’s started for the Black Bears since his sophomore year. He was second-team American East last year averaging 13.8 points and seven rebounds a game. In the team’s opener against Merrimack, Flemming scored a team-high 37 points.

The other two forwards are international players, junior Vilgot Larsson out of Stockholm, Sweden and junior Nedeljko Prijovic from Belgrade, Serbia. Last year Larsson was the only player on the team to play in all 32 games. He averaged 6.7 points and 3.8 rebounds per game. Prijovic, on the other hand, is a transfer from Texas State who sat out the 2018-19 season. In the three games he’s played this season, he’s averaging 9.3 points and 10 rebounds.

Both starting guards for Maine are international players as well in senior Sergio El Darwich from Lebanon and freshman Ja’Shonete Wright-McLeish out of Montreal, Quebec. Darwish is in his second year at Maine after starting his career at West Texas Junior College. Last year, he averaged 10.4 points, 4.2 rebounds, and three assists a game. Wright-McLeish is one of six freshmen on Maine’s roster. Five of the six freshmen are international players. The only American born player in the class is guard Precious Okoh from Brockton, Massachusetts. He’s also the only freshman getting major playing time off the bench.

This will be an interesting game for the Dawgs, who haven’t faced this many international players since their trip to Italy.