Last season, the University of Maine women’s basketball team’s chances to defend its America East Tournament championship were all but squashed when two-time America East first team forward Adrianna Smith was lost for the season due to knee surgery.

Smith, the 2022-23 America East Player of the Year, is already a career 1,000-point scorer who set an America East record with 22 double-doubles in 2023-24 when she averaged 16.4 points and 10.8 rebounds per game. She also led the team with 4.7 assists per game and a total of 25 blocked shots.

The Black Bears went 15-16 a year ago, including an uncharacteristic 9-7 conference record, and lost to Albany 49-41 in the conference semifinals.

Smith decided to come back for a fifth year and is excited to help the Black Bears reclaim an America East championship and the automatic NCAA Tournament berth that goes with it.

Smith said “words can’t describe” how elated she is to be back.

“I’m just happy to be back out there with my team and have this last season even though it is with a different group of girls I was supposed to have it with,” said Smith. “I really like what we’ve done so far [during off-season workouts]. I think our chemistry and everything that we’re learning is good.”

She said the team’s new players are picking things up quickly.

“I’m really happy about how everything is going,” added Smith, who averaged 17.9 points, 9.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists in 2022-23.

Smith has been UMaine’s premier post player for two seasons after coming off the bench her freshman year.

Even though she is undersized at six-feet tall and often finds herself up against much taller post players, she uses her tenacity and fierce competitiveness as well as her quickness, positioning and variety of inside moves to compensate for her lack of size.

But the Black Bears have added two highly-touted newcomers to complement her in 6-foot-4 Lizzy Gruber from Gardiner, who spent the previous two seasons at Division I Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, and 6-foot-3 Bailey Breen from South Thomaston who played for national powerhouse Montverde Academy in Florida last season.

And 6-3 sophomore Ona Alarcon returns after playing in four games a year ago.

“Hopefully we’ll grab some more rebounds this year. Height is something we usually don’t have on this team, and it’s talented height, and it’s really going to help us open up everything. Give us a lot more options,” said Smith. “We’re going to be a little more defensive in the paint and be able to really affect people’s shots.”

UMaine averaged six fewer rebounds a game last season compared to ‘23-24.

The Black Bears will also be bolstered by the debut of redshirt freshman guard Maddie Fitzpatrick from Cumberland and Portland’s Cheverus High School, the former Miss Maine Basketball and two-time Maine Gatorade Player of the Year.

Like Smith, Fitzpatrick missed all of last season due to knee surgery.

“I’m really excited for her,” Smith said about Fitzpatrick. “She’s a very smart basketball player and she hasn’t experienced playing in The Pit. That will be really good.”

Smith said her knee is feeling good.

“I’m right on track. Things are going really well,” said the Reston, Virginia native.

Her individual goal for this season is to “be whoever I need to be for us to win.”

She said that winning an America East championship is always the goal, and she also really wants to win a March Madness game, but knows you have to get there first.

“We want to focus on the preseason, then our out-of-conference schedule and figure it all out by the time we begin playing conference games,” Smith said.

Smith has been in Orono since July, as have some other Black Bears, and everyone is expected to be here this week.

“We’ll get that full team camaraderie and get things going. I’m really excited for that,” Smith said.