UNCASVILLE, CONN. — If the goal Saturday was to prove UMass wasn’t going to be a pushover, it was mission accomplished for the Minutemen.
But that wasn’t the motivation when the Minutemen took the court Saturday at the Mohegan Sun Arena against No. 7 Virginia in the semifinals of the 2019 Air Force Reserve Basketball Hall of Fame Tip-Off. They wanted to win and anything other than scoring more points than the stingy Cavaliers was going to be considered a failure. A loss was going to sting regardless of what the scoreboard said after the game, but the 58-46 defeat was harder to take than a normal 12-point loss to a top-10 team.
For most of the game, UMass hung with Virginia and executed the game plan against the best-in-the-nation Cavaliers defense. The Minutemen got the exact shots they wanted — from the spots on the floor to how open the shooters were — but couldn’t convert on them. In the immediate aftermath of the game, the team’s thoughts weren’t on the confidence built for the future but the missed opportunity.
“I told our team after the game that we’re not in it for moral victories at all,” McCall said. “We went toe-to-toe with the No. 7 team in the country for the better part of the game.”
Entering the game, the Minutemen knew a matchup with a top-10 foe would teach them a lot about themselves. Among the questions they would be able to answer would be what were they doing well, what they were struggling with and what deficiencies they need to address before Atlantic 10 play begins in January. The side effect of that was UMass learned Saturday just how close the program was to being a threat in a veteran-led mid-major conference like the A10.
For a player like freshman Tre Mitchell, the Cavaliers provided the first real test as to how the Minutemen would deal with size and athleticism inside. Mitchell held his own in the first half on the offensive end as the focal point of the offense, sparking a late-half run to pull UMass within five at the break. But even though he collected just two rebounds in nearly 37 minutes of action, Mitchell said the fact a team like Virginia needed to adjust to his presence was a spark to his self-esteem.
“I leave with a bit more confidence because coming out of the first half, I think I was playing pretty well and they had to make an adjustment,” Mitchell said. “I’m more than capable of passing the ball and finding the open man. We just weren’t hitting our shots, that’s all it is. If we hit those shots, it’s an interesting game.”
Virginia did some things Saturday that UMass hadn’t faced yet this season, and had a lot of success breaking the press, but the Cavaliers never really took the Minutemen out of their game at either end of the floor. UMass still held Virginia to a reasonable 42 percent shooting, and there aren’t many games the Minutemen will lose this season surrendering just 58 points.
On offense, the Minutemen used Mitchell to unleash their talented shooters from behind the arc. The difference was UMass made just five 3-pointers and had a lot of great looks at the rim that arrived a half-inch off one way or the other. It wasn’t the victory UMass desired, but a result that still boosted the buy-in of the young roster.
“I was telling the guys, if anything, we leave this game a little bit more confident,” junior captain Carl Pierre said. “A lot of credit to Virginia, but there were a lot of things in our control that we didn’t do or things didn’t go our way that really decided the game. If a few more of those shots fell, it would have been a much closer game. To know that was the difference and we played hard and our style of play is having an effect, we can leave here with a little more confidence than we came in with.”