AMHERST — The next men’s basketball team UMass plays is the last team it beat.
The Minutemen (12-12, 2-9 Atlantic 10) will try to sweep the season series with Saint Joseph’s and end its five-game losing streak in he process when the teams meet Saturday at 2:30 p.m. at Hagan Arena in Philadelphia.
St. Joe’s hasn’t been much better since losing in Amherst. The Hawks (10-13 overall, 3-8 Atlantic 10) won a non-league game against Penn three days later, and have dropped four of the next five conference games, including the last three to Davidson, Fordham and Dayton.
Sophomore guard Lamarr Kimble has continued to do much of the team’s heavy lifting with 15.6 points and 4.3 assists in a league-high 39.4 minutes per game in 11 conference contests.
When the Minutemen and Hawks first played, St. Joe’s was adjusting to losing leading scorer Shavar Newkirk to a season-ending injury. Since then, UMass coach Derek Kellogg said the Hawks have redefined their roles.
“They’ve done a good job of finding their identity. They’ve found their roles. They know where the ball is going in every situation,” he said. “Kimble gives them a leader who finds a way to keep them in games.”
Kellogg’s own team is still sorting that out, especially in key spots.
“I think confidence comes from practicing hard and working hard. Our guys have seemed pretty confident in all the game’s we’ve gone into,” he said. “But as the game goes on you can’t let that confidence waver at any point.”
After Tuesday’s loss to Rhode Island, Kellogg said he thought the speed of freshman DeJon Jarreau’s maturation process would help determine how much and how quickly UMass could reverse its current slide. Kellogg said he has faith in his highly touted freshman point guard.
“I think he wants to do so well so badly, that he sometimes plays at a speed that isn’t conducive to doing well,” Kellogg said. “He needs to go out, take a little pressure off himself and have fun. He’s not far, but he’s just not there yet. He may just need a couple of good plays here and there to put him on the right track. Sometimes it’s just playing through mistakes and figuring it out.”
STANDINGS WATCH — There are three tiers the 14 Atlantic 10 teams can finish their season in. 1. The bottom four. Every team is trying to avoid finishing in spots 11-14, which means playing in one of the two games in the first round. 2. The middle six. Teams 5-10 avoid the opening day. 3. Team’s 1-4 miss the first two days of competition and advance right to the quarterfinals.
UMass’ best possible conference finish is 9-9, which puts a top-four finish almost certainly out of reach. Tied for 13th with Duquesne, the Minutemen’s reasonable goal is to climb out of the bottom four. Even that will take some doing as they’re two games behind Fordham and George Washington, which are tied for ninth at 4-7. Saint Joseph’s (along with Saint Louis) are one game ahead of UMass at 3-8.
On Saturday, Duquesne is at Saint Louis, Fordham is at George Mason and George Washington hosts St. Bonaventure.
Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage