Chris Markwood has a lot to complain about, but he won’t.

Fate hasn’t been particularly kind to the senior tri-captain on the University of Maine men’s basketball team, but he’s the last person you’ll hear bellyaching about it.

The South Portland native’s situation, especially this season, is a microcosm of his team’s: a talented entity generating great expectations which couldn’t be met due to injuries, setbacks, and/or unfortunate circumstances.

Markwood, the team’s floor leader and point guard, has missed eight of his team’s 27 games this season due to a broken left hand and a strained hamstring.

After moving from off guard to the point Markwood – the team’s best defensive player, according to coach Ted Woodward – was expected to help the Bears pick up where they left off last season, when they advanced all the way to the America East championship game. That’s exactly what he did as he helped lead the Bears to an 8-4 mark in the first 12 games he played.

With him in the lineup, the Bears are 10-9. Without him, they’re 3-5. It may not seem like a huge difference, but consider the Bears’ 2-3 mark with him in the lineup in their last three games comes after his return from a second injury (hamstring) – with him playing at 75 percent, if that, and not practicing. Throw in other injuries (leading scorer Ernest Turner missed four of the last six games with a separated shoulder) and defections (regular reserve Jermaine Jackson and freshman guard Fefo Sanchez left the team in January for personal reasons), and you better understand the struggles of Markwood and his Bears.

“It’s extremely frustrating, but I’m a strong believer that things happen for a reason,” said the double major in business management and sociology. “I think maybe things may happen to me because I can handle them.”

Markwood handled his three-week, seven-game layoff due to a broken hand by working out and practicing as much as he could. He handled his hamstring injury by sitting out one game, missing most of the team’s practices for two weeks, and still managing to average 30.8 minutes played per game.

A couple weeks of heating and icing treatment, deep-tissue massages and ultrasound treatments have helped.

“I feel good and I’m really starting to come back,” said the 6-foot-3, 203-pound guard. “I still get a little twinge, but it’s getting a lot better. My flexibility has increased a lot the last couple weeks and I feel like I’m at 85 or 90 percent.”

Markwood’s 85 percent is still better than many players’ 100. He leads the team in assists with 71 (3.7 per game) and is averaging 7.8 points per game.

“People who don’t see us practice all the time don’t know what Chris has been going through,” Woodward said. “He wasn’t able to practice at all and he basically just gutted out games for us. He’s a leader in every sense.”

It was an injury that indirectly led to Markwood’s decision to leave a full scholarship at Notre Dame and transfer to UMaine – which felt like a natural fit and brought with it the irresistible allure of helping lead the Bears to previously unattained heights – just over two years ago.

“My freshman year I had surgery on my knee and they cleaned out cartilage from an injury I had the summer before senior year in high school,” said Markwood, who averaged 5-6 minutes per game as a backup point guard his sophomore season at Notre Dame.

His junior year, he was moved to the wing in favor of a freshman named Chris Quinn. Markwood said things “happened pretty quick” after that.

“I was there for 13 games that year and once I saw it wasn’t looking up for me, I called my family and friends and talked about transferring,” he recalled. “I loved everything about Notre Dame except the playing time, and I had to see what I could do since I put so much time into my goal of playing Division I ball.”

Saturday, Markwood and the rest of his teammates will have a chance to accomplish the first of a few major and, so far, elusive goals. A win against No. 3 Boston University in Saturday’s 8:30 p.m. America East tournament quarterfinal would be the first by Maine in four years against the Terriers.

Maine has lost 10 straight and 11 of the last 12 against BU.

“We have an uphill climb ahead of us but, truthfully, I don’t think we’d want it any other way,” Markwood said. “You have to play the good teams anyway, and they’re not going to give you anything, so you just have to go out and take it from them.”

With all the injuries and setbacks the last two seasons, and Maine still trying to earn its first-ever NCAA Tournament berth, does Markwood regret any of his decisions?

“I don’t have regrets. I don’t look at life like that,” Markwood said simply. “I’m glad I made the move. I love the guys on this team and I love the staff. It’s a great bunch of guys.”