His given name is Ludmil Hadjisotirov, but thanks to the nickname his parents came up with for him when he was a child, his teammates, coaches, and friends just call him Udo.

Udo is the newest addition to the University of Maine men’s basketball team, and judging from the statistics he’s compiled in his first two games, he could be a very positive one.

“Adding Udo to the rest of the mix is a big positive,” said Maine coach John Giannini. “He’s only played in two games, but he’s had a significant impact already.”

The 22-year-old native of Sofia, Bulgaria, made his Black Bear debut Monday against David Lipscomb College in the Dr. Pepper Classic. He shot 2-for-3 from 3-point range, 3-for-4 from the line, and 50 percent from the floor overall en route to 15 points in 13 minutes.

“It was just a great debut for him,” Giannini said. “We recruited him so hard and followed him quite a long time, so it’s just so good to finally get him in uniform.”

After playing at Winchendon Prep School in Massachusetts, Udo was recruited hard by several Division I schools including Maine, but the 6-foot-2 guard chose a Boston College uniform from a list of finalists including Wisconsin, Fordham, Southern California, and Maine.

He averaged 2.3 points and 0.5 rebounds as a freshman at BC and then averaged 0.8 points and 0.8 boards in five games his sophomore year. Faced with the prospect of sporadic playing time at best as a backup to All-America candidate Troy Bell, Hadjisotirov decided to transfer.

“I wanted more opportunities and chances to play,” Udo said. “I had a good experience with the Maine coaches. I just wanted to make sure wherever I went, I would go somewhere they could appreciate my game. I’d heard they lost some guards and needed some help. It was a pretty easy decision.”

After transferring in the 2002 spring semester, Hadjisotirov became eligible to play for Maine on Dec. 21, but had to sit out three more games as punishment for secondary violations of NCAA rules.

In his second game Thursday, he was 4-for-9 (44.4 percent) with 11 points and three rebounds. He has committed six turnovers in 42 minutes.

“I’m still not playing with 100 percent of my abilities, but I think things are coming along,” Hadjisotirov said.

Having been a freshman member of an Eagles team that played in the NCAA Tournament, winning America East and earning a trip back to the tourney is Udo’s big goal. Not surprising, given his family’s knack for athletic success.

Udo’s older brother Boyan was a member of the national ski team in Bulgaria and his father Ludmil was a player and coach for Bulgaria’s national water polo team and a two-time Olympian. He was recently voted the coach of Bulgaria’s all-century water polo team.

Udo switched from skateboarding and soccer to basketball after accompanying some friends to a court one day.

“It was very easy for me without even practicing and I got more into it every year,” said the communications-journalism major.

The fact that his exposure to basketball coincided with the debut of NBA telecasts in Bulgaria helped as well.

“I liked Seattle with Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp and Detroit because of Isaiah Thomas,” he said. “I learned dribble fakes from Tim Hardaway, I tried to pick up the way John Stockton thinks, and I studied driving to the basket by watching Kevin Johnson.”

Giannini hopes he can do a little bit of everything.

“He gives us another solid ballhandler as well as a good shooter and those are things we very sorely need,” he said.