From time to time I wonder whether the University of Maine really needs to be a Division I program in every sport in which it fields a team.

But a trip to Orono to check out this year’s men’s basketball team reinforced why in most cases it’s a noble cause.

Much of education is about providing opportunity, and in the athletic arena Division I status allows Maine – and Maine kids – an opportunity to be tested at the highest level.

Eight of the 13 players on this year’s men’s basketball roster are Maine natives. A ninth, Junior Bernal, played at the Hyde School in Bath and at Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield before coming to campus.

And they’re not on the roster just because they’re from here. Everything preceding their arrival on campus suggested they had sufficient game, enough so Maine had to outrecruit other mid-major Division I programs to keep them home.

“It’s definitely a good thing,” said sophomore guard Mark Socoby, a former All-Maine player at Houlton and Bangor. “I don’t think everybody’s been recruited here just because they’re from Maine. They’re good players, they play hard, they’re heady and they really love the game, and that’s definitely a positive.”

Most of the names are familiar to basketball fans – Socoby, Jordan Cook, Sean McNally, Troy Barnies, Sean Costigan, Brian Andre, Jason Hight and Jay Uhrin – and it will be interesting not only to watch them progress, but to see how interested those fans are in following that progress.

Men’s basketball hasn’t been a big draw in recent years. Its biggest home crowd last winter was 1,980, and one of the laments has been the lack of a connection between the team and the basketball community because of rosters sometimes reliant on junior college transfers and players who otherwise came to Orono in part because they had few other options.

That won’t be the case for the next few years.

“We’re very fortunate to have a number of players who played their high school basketball in Maine on our roster,” said Maine coach Ted Woodward, “but these are guys who had tremendous high school careers, were outstanding players in the AAU circuit, and are guys that we worked very, very hard to get to come to the University of Maine.”

As with any young team – Andre, the former Valley of Bingham center who transferred to Maine from Buffalo, is the lone senior – there will be growing pains, but even that doesn’t diminish the excitement within the program.

“We’re a very young team,” said Socoby, “but although we are young I think there’s a lot of eagerness. We want to play and we want to prove ourselves.”

And proving themselves doesn’t necessary involve a young team taking baby steps.

“We’re real young, but our goal is to try to win the conference championship, like it is pretty much every year,” said Cook, a 6-foot-10 center who led Hampden Academy to the 2005 Class A state title.

If they accomplish that goal this year, or next year, or the year after that, it will mark a first for the program – a trip to the NCAA tournament.

And not only would that speak well for the current crop of Maine players, but it might motivate the next generation of native Black Bears, too.

“We definitely want to have success, and hopefully if we do, it will go down to the younger kids,” said Cook. “The Maine high school kids are going to want to come here, and they’ll be playing a lot of basketball trying to get to the University of Maine.”

Ernie Clark may be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or eclark@bangordailynews.net