The University of Maine men’s basketball team is sending one of their own across the pond this summer for an international coaching experience.
Associate head coach Douglas Leichner was named head coach of the Great Britain Under 20 team for this summer’s Division B European Championships to be held in Pitesti, Romania.
“It was very exciting,” Leichner said. “I had applied for the job four times before, so I’ve gotten to know the people over the years. When I got the OK and was told, ‘Yes,’ it was a great feeling of excitement because I’ve gotten to know the players too, so going over to European championships I have a real good feel of the roster.”
UMaine recruits a lot of international players, so Leichner is familiar with many players in the field. A couple of UMaine players have played in the European Championships, too, including sophomore forward Kilian Cato and junior forward Alasdair Fraser.
“At the University of Maine, we do a lot of recruiting internationally,” Leichner said. “During the summer I go to the European Championships — the U18s, U20s — so the guys I will be coaching at the 20-year-old level I have known for three or four years as part of the recruiting process.”
Leichner just completed his eighth season with the Black Bears, and he already has some international coaching experience under his belt. In 2009, Leichner led the Irish Professional SuperLeague UCC Demons team to a 21-1-1 record and the league championship. The tournament is only a few months away and Leichner does not yet have a full roster, but he does know he will have one of the best players in Europe on his side.
“Devon van Oostrum — He plays in Spain and is considered one of the top 10 to 15 players in Europe. He does have NBA potential and he’s kind of looked at that being that he is 20 and playing in one of the best leagues in the world. The roster other than that is still being comprised,” Leichner said. “There are a lot of guys that have come stateside from England, similar to Alasdair Frasier, that are playing in University. Seeing which guys are committed and able to play is always constantly changing. I feel like a general manager right now, trying to talk with guys, seeing who can play and who cannot, but van Oostrum’s commitment is tremendous.”
Even with an NBA-caliber player on his side, it will still be a challenge for Leichner to bring the Great Britain team to the championship game. Great Britain’s division consists of Slovakia, Hungary, Luxembourg, Poland and host country Romania. The top four teams in the group will advance to the quarter finals against teams from the other division. Leichner identified that Poland will be the greatest threat.
“In our group Poland is going to be real good. They have a big guy who plays for Gonzaga [Przemek Karnowski], he is 7 [feet tall] and is really good. They have a guy we recruited here at UMaine that plays for Liberty University [Tomasz Gielo] and a couple of guys who were recruited to UMaine but decided to play professionally — they will be on their roster, so the team to beat on paper right now is the Polish team,” Leichner said.
Not only will making the roster and preparing for opposing teams be a challenge, there are multiple rules and playing styles that are different in the European game. The NBA 24-second shot clock is used, and there is no 5-second call for defenders guarding the person in possession of the ball. The way the travel is called and defensive tactics can be tricky to navigate through as well.
“Sometimes in Europe you can get away with a travel more so than in the United States. In the U.S. you get sort of a running start before you put the ball on the floor. In Europe, you really have to make sure you put the ball on the floor before you start to move, but at the end you may be able to do what they call Euro steps,” Leichner said. “In FIBA [International Basketball Federation] play, they will let you put your arm on a guy, here you can’t. Hand checking is allowed in the European Championships but you can’t do that here. Those are some of the little things I’ll have to adjust to.”
Leichner will have a couple of months to prepare for these differences as he leaves in June to start preparing. Between practices, they will travel to and host other countries to help prepare for the start of the tournament.
“The month of June I’ll be in England, doing training camps and trying to form the team,” Leichner said. “On the weekends, we will be playing different countries. This is going to be a unique experience for a lot of guys: One weekend we will play Finland in a mini-tournament, the next weekend we’ll go to Portugal in a mini tournament and one weekend we are hosting a couple countries. This is all building up to the European Championships in the middle of July in Romania.”
This coaching experience will help Leichner when he returns to UMaine in the fall.
“As an assistant coach, you’re always the one making the suggestions; and as a head coach, you have to be the one that makes the decisions,” Leichner said. “I think it will make me a more rounded assistant coach when I return to the University of Maine, having to make all of the decisions that head coaches have to make. This is a great head coaching experience for me that will help me develop professionally.”
On July 12, Leichner and his Great Britain team tip off their journey to the U20 European Championships against Slovakia.