AMHERST — Last week, UMass’ first-half woes served only to set up the Minutemen’s memorable second-half surges. This week’s seem more indicative of a larger problem.
UMass has now trailed by double digits at intermission in each of the last four games. In Atlantic 10 play, the Minutemen have been down by an average of 10.7 points at halftime, including Saturday’s 38-27 deficit that ballooned into a 66-47 loss to Saint Louis.
The Minutemen haven’t led at halftime since dominating a dreadful Maine team 40-15. They’ve been outscored 271-196 in the first half in seven Atlantic 10 games.
UMass coach Matt McCall saw it coming Saturday.
“I didn’t like our disposition (Friday) in practice. I didn’t like it last night. I didn’t like it today in shoot-around. It’s less tactical. It’s more of a mindset,” he said. “We can’t just play well when Carl (Pierre) and Pip (Luwane Pipkins) are making shots. It’s got to be more than that.”
Junior big man Malik Hines said the Minutemen didn’t do the things in the second half that allowed them to come back last week.
“In those games we wanted it more. We were more connected as a team. The fight back was more urgent,” he said. “Usually we come back because we feel we’re the better conditioned team. We tried to use that today. It wasn’t clicking for us as a team today.”
Saint Louis coach Travis Ford said leading up to the game, he stressed to his team that UMass was capable of big rallies.
“We watched how UMass had some big comebacks in the second half,” Ford said. “We talked about that a lot at halftime. We wanted to have our guys alert to that.”
FOUR GUARDS STARTING — McCall shook up his starting lineup again. He replaced Chris Baldwin with C.J. Anderson, creating a four-guard lineup as the senior joined Luwane Pipkins, Carl Pierre, Unique McLean and Malik Hines.
CAMBY RETURNS — Former UMass standout Marcus Camby was honored at halftime as part of a 50th anniversary of the Naismith Player of the Year award, which Camby won in 1996. He was presented with a watch to commemorate the honor.
UMass designated it alumni day in recognition, inviting former players and managers back. Among the former players in the crowd were Carmelo Travieso, Chris Lowe, Jeff Viggiano, Matt Pennie, Micah Brand and Chris Kirkland.
The only alum likely headed home happy was Dante Milligan. The former Minuteman big man is a graduate assistant at Saint Louis on Ford’s staff.
Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage