Nobody said moving to Division I on short notice was going to be easy.

But nobody said UNO was going to be a couple of possessions away from being 2-1 against Summit League teams, either.

"I don't want to sell our guys short, but I'm mildly surprised with what we've done," seventh-year UNO coach Derrin Hansen said. "This is one of the least experienced teams we've had. We're not nearly as far along at this point as we have been in a lot of areas."

UNO, which begins playing a full Summit League schedule next season, is 1-3 overall, including 0-3 in road games against future league rivals.

The Mavericks face another Summit opponent — likely the best one yet — on the road Tuesday when they play North Dakota State at the Bison Sports Arena in Fargo.

"It kind of stinks because we've played hard for 38 minutes and it's come down to the last couple of possessions and we haven't been able to close it out," UNO forward Alex Welhouse said. "But we can definitely learn from it and move forward."

The Mavericks had a seven-point lead with seven minutes left Wednesday at Missouri-Kansas City, but lost 77-74 on a 3-pointer by Reggie Chamberlain with two seconds left.

Sunday at South Dakota, UNO led by two in the final minute, but couldn't score on Mitch Albers' attempt from the lane to retake the lead with 12 seconds to go and on two shots by CJ Carter in the lane that would have tied the game in the closing seconds of an 83-81 loss.

"I like the way we've battled," Hansen said. "And we've made strides the last two to three weeks in practice that is showing in the games. But there's still a lot of learning to do."

Indiana-Purdue-Fort Wayne, which beat UNO 83-72 in the Mavs' season opener, was picked to finish sixth in the 10-team Summit League. UMKC was picked to finish seventh and South Dakota last.

North Dakota State (4-0) was picked to finish fifth.

"I don't want to say they're better than Fort Wayne since we haven't played yet, but from what I've seen on film, they're pretty good," Hansen said. "They won three games in a Division I tournament and beat (Wisconsin-) Green Bay, so that's impressive."

UNO announced its intention to begin reclassifying to Division I in March, leaving the program little chance to gather any recruiting momentum to prepare for the move.

And — to paraphrase Rick Pitino — Tyler Bullock is not walking through that door, fans. Torrian Harris is not walking through that door, and Jeff Martin is not walking through that door.

In other words, UNO's team last year — which finished tied for third in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association and narrowly missed a bid to the Division II tournament — was probably better than this one.

Yet UNO's early-season résumé lends credence to the theory advanced by many that there is little competitive difference between the top end of Division II and the bottom of Division I.

For one thing, some of the top players in Division II aren't eligible to play in Division I.

Hansen declines to venture too far into such discussions.

"There's a smaller margin for error in Division I," he said. "Your eighth and ninth guys in Division II are 14 or 15 in Division I — so they aren't playing. There's a little bit of a talent gap there.

"The talent in Division II is better than people think because you have drop down guys (Division I transfers) and guys who slip through the cracks."

Moving into Division I, the players' expectations were an unknown.

"I knew we were going to compete as hard as we could for as long as we could in every game. And as long as you compete, you never know what can happen," Welhouse said. "Most of the teams we play will have size on us, because usually after you've been in Division I for a while you get that size."

And while the last-minute losses have been discouraging, the implications are promising.

"It gives us a glimpse of where we're at, and that's a good thing," point guard Caleb Steffensmeier said. "We've competed with the Summit League so far. It's shown us that we can stick with them, and if we can continue to get better, it gives us a glimpse of what we can expect in the future."

What does the near future look like?

"Is it Mount Everest for us to get to the middle of the Summit?" Hansen asked. "We haven't seen the top end of it yet — the Oral Roberts', Oaklands and IUPUIs — but from what I've seen, over the course of the next 2, 3 or 4 years, I think we can get even with those people (in the middle)."

• MAV NOTES: Hansen said barring unforeseen developments, freshman Simon Krych, a 6-foot-8 forward from St. Cloud, Minn., will redshirt. ... Hansen said junior college point guard transfer Jacques Coleman has played only sparingly thus far because his ineligibility was in question up until last week because of a transcript issue. The Mavs were preparing in case they had to move on without the projected backup, and since then they've been involved mostly in game preparation.

Contact the writer:

402-444-1027, rob.white@owh.com

twitter.com/RWhiteOWH

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