Maverick basketball gears up for season openers
By Brandon McDermott, KVNO News
October 24th, 2012
Omaha, NE – With basketball season just weeks away, the Summit League held its annual basketball media day Wednesday for women’s and men’s teams from around the conference. Both head coaches from the University of Nebraska Omaha said the Mavericks will face a beefed-up schedule, but added that won’t be an excuse for poor performance.
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Senior guard Paige Frauendorfer is looking for big things this season. (Photo Courtesy: UNO Athletics)
This will be the first year both teams face a full Division-I schedule. Last year, the Mavericks were allowed to schedule lower level opponents as well as Division-I teams. Darrin Hansen, head basketball coach of the UNO men’s team, sounded ready to take the court Wednesday, but leveled back his enthusiasm when talking about potential wins and losses.
“We are excited about the league to begin, we are excited about our team,” Hansen said. “We think we made strides, whether that pays off in wins or not, I don’t know.”
Hansen said the team is looking forward to new experiences, but added “how we are going to fare … that remains to be seen.”
Chance Lindley, head women’s basketball coach at UNO, echoed Hansen and promised his team will fight every night for victory. “We talked a lot about what we are as a team,” Lindley said, “what we think we could be as a team.”
“I think the word we keep using is ‘potential,'” he added. “I think we have a lot of potential, but at the end of the day it doesn’t count for much right now.” Lindley said his team will be competitive, “and at least hopefully challenge the teams every night in our conference.”
Both teams are looking for improvement from last year. On the men’s side, the team notched an 11-18 record last season. This year, three of the top four scorers will return, but the team must replace Mitch Albers who left UNO in second place all time in career scoring.
The women’s team is fresh off a 15-12 overall record last year. The team will bring back five seniors and three juniors. One Maverick looking to make some noise is senior guard Paige Frauendorfer. Frauendorfer averaged 13 points and nine rebounds as a junior last year.
The first game for the men’s team is against Northern Illinois on November 9th at the Ralston Arena. The women’s first game is against North Carolina A&T. That game is scheduled November 12th and will be played at the Sapp Fieldhouse at UNO.
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