ORONO – The sullen-looking players gathered at midcourt, forming a circle and then turning around to face the fans in Memorial Gymnasium, a.k.a. The Pit.

The University of Maine women’s basketball team had lost again Wednesday night, but as his players looked up into the crowd, first-year coach Richard Barron walked toward the PA announcer and took the microphone.

Additional Photos

Barron

Vachon

UMaine Coach Richard Barron has a history of being able to recruit talented players from his days as an assistant at Baylor and North Carolina State, and the Black Bears have already signed three highly regarded players for next season. University of Maine photo

“Thank you all for coming out,” Barron said among his remarks. The players’ acknowledgement of the fans and Barron’s comments are meant to reconnect the Black Bears with their followers

The gym was less than half full, maybe 500 fans, although the official attendance was announced as 1,270. The wins are not coming in bunches yet, and neither are the fans.

No one is blaming Barron. He only recently walked into this mess that the program has become — including a 24-94 record the previous four years.

Barron’s job is to fix it. When Barron was hired last May, Athletic Director Steve Abbott said that he and Barron “share a vision and a belief that Maine women’s basketball is going to be back to where it was and go beyond.”

Whoa. Back to Maine’s glory days of the late 1990s, and beyond that?

Think about those words. Compare the crowd at Wednesday’s UNH-Maine game to the one in 1998 when the Wildcats and Black Bears played in front of 5,892 at Alfond Arena.

Longtime fans may remember that Maine lost that game, too. But it was a blip during a stretch of four consecutive America East championships and six straight trips to the NCAA tournament. The Black Bears routinely drew crowds of 4,000 and 5,000.

And Barron is supposed to get the program back to that level?

There are believers.

“I think it can get back to that,” said Maine assistant coach Amy Vachon.

Vachon sports the credentials to make such a statement. She was part of Maine’s heyday, the staring point guard for four of those NCAA tournament runs. She helped engineer the Black Bears’ one NCAA victory, a 60-58 upset of Stanford in 1999.

Vachon speaks from her office overlooking the gym. Next to her desk is one of those inspirational calendars. Headlined above the month of January, in large letters, is one word: Perseverance.

“My sophomore year (1996-97), there was a documentary done on the team,” she said. “I got a copy of it last week and watched it for the first time. Just to see the Alfond and all the people. I truly believe we can get back to it. I really, really do.”

THE GLORY DAYS

Maine has always had a winning tradition in women’s basketball, with a winning record most years.

And when an upstart coach named Joanne Palombo-McCallie took over the Black Bears, she nearly led the team to it first-ever NCAA tournament in 1994. But a scheduling snafu made Maine ineligible for its own league tournament, which offered an NCAA automatic bid to the winner.

The domination began the following year when highly touted recruit Cindy Blodgett came in and turned a good team into a stellar one, leading Maine to an upset of nationally ranked Alabama, and then the league title and an NCAA berth.

Wins, championships and even more fans followed. McCallie brought in other standout recruits, such as center Jamie Cassidy and Vachon, and surrounded them with strong role players.

THE TRANSITION

The six-year run of NCAA tournaments ended after the 1999-2000 season, the senior year for Vachon and Cassidy, and the final season for McCallie, who took the head job at Michigan State.

But McCallie left Maine one last strong recruiting class, including post players Heather Ernest and Julie Veilleux.

When another upstart coach, Sharon Versyp, came in to replace McCallie, she faced a couple rebuilding seasons. But, with McCallie’s recruits and a strong recruiting class of her own the next year, Versyp coached the Black Bears back to the NCAA tournament in 2004.

But after the next season, when all her top players had graduated, Versyp also left for the Big 10, taking the Indiana head coaching job.

THE DROP

Ann McInerney was brought in to replace Versyp. She also faced a time for rebuilding, but never got the chance. The Black Bears were 10-19 and then 13-15 under her watch. But disagreement over her style, as well as a controversial OUI arrest of her top assistant coach, led to McInerney leaving after two years.

Blodgett was named to replace McInerney and the rebuilding never seemed to end– a 7-23 season was followed by 5-25, 8-21 and 4-25 last year.

Blodgett was fired. Barron, a former Princeton head coach and an assistant at such renowned programs as Baylor and North Carolina State, was hired.

THE NOW

If anyone was naively looking for instant improvement, it hasn’t happened. Maine is 6-16 after Saturday’s victory against Binghamton.

Injuries and other issues have taken a toll. Senior forward Samantha Wheeler, expected to be a team leader, has not played since Dec. 11 because of continued problems with post-concussion syndrome. She is out for the season.

In the loss to New Hampshire on Wednesday, Maine dressed only nine players and Barron played only six of them.

Still, the Black Bears picked up three of their wins over the last two weeks.

“For a while, people were saying there was nowhere to go but up,” Barron said of last year’s four-win season. “I was worried I might prove them wrong.

“But we have done that and I’m proud of these kids.”

But most of these kids are not the ones with whom Barron will build the program. Reaching the benchmark of the late 1990s will require more talent.

Barron knows he won’t win 20 games with this team, but he talks about creating a challenging atmosphere.

“If we can create a culture where pushing yourself, being competitive, maximizing your abilities is part of the culture, then future teams will benefit from that,” he said.

Even though Wheeler won’t play again for Maine, she’s encouraged by Barron.

“I think he’s going to do great things for this program,” she said. “He’s changed everything. We want to keep improving. This is definitely a good stepping stone for the years to come.”

THE FUTURE

Barron has five freshmen this season who are scoring 33 percent of Maine’s points. Some of them may certainly be part of Barron’s long-range plans, but he is also busy bringing in more players.

Barron prides himself on his recruiting — he was the recruiting coordinator at Baylor — and has already signed three players during the early signing period last fall.

“They’re good,” Vachon said. “They will come in and have an immediate impact.

“We need to get the impact kids. We can’t wait.”

The three are 5-foot-7 shooting guard Lauren Bodine from Louisville, Ky.; 5-7 guard Brittany Wells of Indianapolis; and 5-11 guard Elizabeth Wood of Catlee, Va.

Bodine has hit 31 of 72 3-pointers, Wells has recorded a quadruple-double this season (19 points, 14 rebounds, 12 steals and 10 assists), and Wood is averaging 22 points and nine rebounds.

Barron plans to sign more players, during the next NCAA signing period in the spring. He said Maine women’s basketball still has some good selling points.

“We have fan support — the fact that people care about it,” Barron said. “We know that if we build this thing back, we’ll be able to have thousands of people in the stands to watch us play.

“That’s not true everywhere. I’ve been to those big arenas where there are 400 people to watch a game. It is not a fun atmosphere to play in.

“But you put a couple thousand people in The Pit or get to 3-4,000 people in Alfond, it is a very different atmosphere. Athletes want to play somewhere where it matters.”

And that is Barron’s challenge: to make UMaine women’s basketball matter again.

Staff writer Kevin Thomas can be reached at 791-6411 or at:

kthomas@pressherald.com

Twitter: KevinThomasPPH

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