AMHERST — Carl Pierre could have been frustrated when he headed to the bench with 12:52 remaining in the first half.
He had just picked up his second foul and he knew it was unlikely he would play for the rest of the half Tuesday. He could have even been nervous with a group of freshmen now tasked with keeping UMass in the lead against a veteran UMass-Lowell squad that has historically played the Minutemen tough inside the Mullins Center. Yet that isn’t what he chose to do.
Instead, Pierre was so enthusiastic and loud from the bench that a referee had to ask him to sit down at one point. Instead, he supplied the energy from the bench he would have supplied had he been out on the court. Instead, he watched as every one of the 10 Minutemen who played in the 79-64 win over the River Hawks performed their role as hard as they could.
“Everyone gave us a lift there, it was a total team win,” coach Matt McCall said. “Everyone was into the game, the bench was into it, the coaching staff was into it, it was a complete team win there.”
With Pierre taken out of the game by foul trouble, freshman T.J. Weeks filled the vacuum with his own impressive shooting day. With his father – UMass legend Tyrone Weeks – in the stands, the younger Weeks made 8 of 12 from the floor and made 4 of 6 attempts from behind the arc to lead the Minutemen with 23 points.
It wasn’t just that he scored in bunches, but Weeks did so at the most critical times of the game. UMass-Lowell hung around through the early part of the second half until Weeks went on a personal 7-0 run to push the UMass lead into double digits for the first time. When the River Hawks (0-1) cut the deficit back down to six with 2:50 left, Weeks responded with back-to-back 3-pointers and had a third rim-out to put away UMass-Lowell for good.
“I was just waiting for the play to develop, finding the open spots then catch and shoot,” Weeks said.
Weeks was simply feeding off the energy exuded from the rest of his teammates, many of whom were also making their official collegiate debuts. Fellow freshman Sean East was composed running the offense in his first career start and finished with 11 points, six assists and zero turnovers. Preston Santos made his presence known with his defensive hustle, earning plaudits from McCall for the little things he did on that end of the floor.
And Tre Mitchell was a force on the interior even if he finished with only 10 points and nine rebounds while shooting 3 of 11. The unifying force was the support the Minutemen showed each other for all 40 minutes of the victory and how it seemed to boost everyone’s performance.
“We were just excited for one another,” Weeks said. “If somebody made a great play, we hyped them up. Whoever came in kept the same energy and the players on the bench kept the same energy as the players on the court.”
The connectedness continued on the defensive end of the floor when the Minutemen rolled out a more aggressive version of their press. After purposely being bland in last week’s exhibition, UMass showed plenty of distinct looks to its pressure defense and used it to force 18 turnovers – including 11 steals. The key to that success was how en sync the Minutemen were within their rotations as they sped up the UMass-Lowell offense and created the chances for easy baskets at the other end.
“With the press and everything that was going on, we were locked in and focused,” said graduate student center Djery Baptiste, who had four blocks. “Obviously, there’s a lot we can improve on, but that’s my job, I have to protect the basket.”
The resolve of the group was tested in the second half as the River Hawks refused to go away and cut into the UMass lead. Although Pierre and Weeks were the players hitting the shots that kept UMass-Lowell at bay, it was a team effort to ultimately close out the Minutemen’s first win of the season.
And when the celebration ensued in the UMass locker room inside the Champions Center, it wasn’t 14 guys celebrating individual accomplishments. It was 14 guys celebrating the contributions of the other 13 members of the team.
“We were celebrating each other and even when there were a couple of runs and things weren’t going our way, we still stayed connected,” Baptiste said. “Everybody contributed in some way or another. We were celebrating in the locker room happy for each other.”