AMHERST — UMass won’t have to wait long to see if its good enough to be competitive in the Atlantic 10.
Beginning with Friday’s 4 p.m. game against St. Bonaventure, the Minutemen will open league play with a stretch of five games that should test them in a hurry – four against teams picked in the top five of the preseason poll and one against the league’s surprise success.
After playing the Bonnies (8-4), who were picked fifth in preseason poll, UMass will travel to George Mason, which raced out a surprising 10-3 start, and VCU (10-3, picked third) next Wednesday and Saturday. They’ll host Dayton (9-3, picked first) on Jan. 11 before visiting Rhode Island (8-4, picked second) on Jan. 15.
“We’ll talk about it, but I’m going one game at a time,” UMass coach Derek Kellogg said. “That stretch coming up is a tough stretch. But you have to play everybody at some point ,so lets see where we’re at early in conference.”
Junior Donte Clark agreed.
“It’s definitely a good test for us,” Clark said. “If we get off to a good start with the St. Bonnie and George Mason games, I definitely think we’ll be ready for VCU, Dayton and Rhode Island.”
With a short turnaround after Wednesday’s win at Georgia State, the Minutemen’s Thursday preparation was a video session and a walk-through rather than a full workout.
“My biggest thing is to make sure they’re well-rested and get them off their feet,” Kellogg said. “We’ll game plan mentally more than physically.”
Other than a 73-66 loss to Florida, St. Bonaventure’s only game against a Power Five opponent, the Bonnies’ three losses to Arkansas-Little Rock, UNC-Wilmingon and Canisius in overtime, have all be determined by a single possession.
SBU beat UMass by a single possession a year ago when Donte Clark’s would-be game-winning 3-pointer went in, but was released a split second after time ran out. That game gave the Bonnies a sweep of the season series.
“This is definitely a revenge game for the times they beat us last year,” Clark said.
The Atlantic 10 has six players averaging 20 or more points per game, and two of them play for St. Bonaventure. Jaylen Adams is tied for the league’s scoring lead at 23.0 percent, while Matt Mobley, a 6-foot-3 guard who transferred from Central Connecticut, is fifth at 20.3 points per game.
No player contributes more to his team than Adams, a 6-foot-2 Baltimore native. The junior guard also leads the conference with 6.6 assists per game. Of the 351 field goals, the Bonnies have scored, he’s either scored (82) or assisted (79) on 161 of them (45.9 percent).
“Jalen makes them go with his ability to get other players involved as well as to score,” Kellogg said. “Mobley gives them what (Marcus) Posley gave them last year, which is a guy that can put up 20 points a night. That’s about as good a one-two combo as we’ll face all year.”
St. Bonaventure games are generally high scoring. Their 84.8 points per game leads the conference, but their 77.4 allowed is 13th.
The contest will match strengths vs. strengths and weakness vs. weaknesses. SBU’s .474 field goal percentage second in A-10 and it’s 39.1 percent 3-point shooting is best in the conference, while the Minutemen’s 38.4 field goal percentage defense and 29.9 percent 3-point defense both lead the conference.
The Bonnies are near the bottom in 3-point defense (39.3 percent) while UMass shoots 30.4 percent from deep, which is worst in the A-10.
Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage