AMHERST — There’s a very good chance that the UMass men’s basketball players who aren’t out for the season will all be in uniform and available Wednesday night.
Khalea Turner-Morris, who has missed the last four games with a concussion, is back at full strength and will play. If Luwane Pipkins, who missed Saturday’s game with a concussion, doesn’t have a setback, he’ll play too. The Minutemen are at Richmond at 7 p.m.
“He’s progressing. No contact (Monday), limited contact (Tuesday). If he’s symptom free, he’ll play tomorrow,” UMass coach Matt McCall said.
Pipkins said he was proud of how his teammates fought without him in Saturday’s overtime loss to George Mason.
“I’m very proud of them. I knew they had it in them. They just have to bring it out,” he said. “If I can’t play Wednesday, I hope they do that again.”
McCall said Randall West, who was added from the football program when Turner-Morris first went down, is still very much a part of the game plan.
“We’re going to need Randall for the rest of the year. We will still use him,” he said.
The game is UMass’ last regular season road game before completing its season against Duquesne at home on Saturday. The Minutemen (11-18, 4-12 A-10) are locked into one of the bottom four seeds which assures them of playing on March 7 in the first round of the Atlantic 10 Tournament in Washington, D.C.
McCall said his team still has things to play for.
“Not being in the fight for a (regular-season conference) championship, and not being in the fight for an NCAA at-large bid sucks,” he said. “No one should ever want to feel this ever again. But there’s an enormous amount we can take. We have to continue to battle.”
The Spiders have had an odd year. They started the season 3-13 before suddenly catching fire. They won six of the next seven, including wins over VCU and Davidson on the road.
But the magic disappeared as quickly as it arrived. Richmond has lost five straight and is 9-19 (7-9) going into Wednesday’s game.
The Spiders start a junior, two sophomores and two freshmen, making them on of the youngest teams in the conference. Redshirt freshman Grant Golden leads the Spiders with 15.4 points and 6.4 rebounds.
McCall said facing Richmond’s Princeton-style offense is hard to prepare for.
“Richmond runs the Princeton so well,” he said. “They run it so hard and so fast, it’s hard to replicate it (in practice). You have to break it down and keep it as simple as possible for how we’re going to guard certain things.”
Senior C.J. Anderson said focus is critical.
“It’s a very challenging system. It’s very good. You have to be on your p’s and q’s,” he said. “You have to be alert. that’s the No. 1 thing when you’re playing them on defense.”
Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage