AMHERST — With just 2 minutes, 40 seconds left, the game looked all but over.
South Carolina led by 11 and UMass hadn’t made a field goal in more than three minutes. The normally reliable sharpshooting duo of Carl Pierre and T.J. Weeks both missed open 3-pointers, and the Minutemen hadn’t proved they could stop the Gamecocks from scoring.
But Keon Clergeot rattled home a 3-pointer to cut the deficit to eight. Sean East II made a pair of free throws, Pierre scored a layup then both Weeks and Pierre made 3-pointers. All of a sudden, South Carolina had the ball with eight seconds left up just two points.
“Our sense of urgency was higher,” Pierre said. “You hate to say too little, too late, but that’s really what happened. We just really wanted to win and that sense of urgency, we need to have that for 40 full minutes.”
A.J. Lawson hit both free throws to ice the game officially for the Gamecocks, but in those final 160 seconds, the Minutemen created chaos and showed the glimpses of what this young team could be.
“I told our guys that I was really proud of them,” coach Matt McCall said. “We didn’t quit. … We kept executing and our guys kept fighting and we gave ourselves a chance. One missed free throw here or there and you don’t know what could happen.”
There were several other moments in the game when UMass had chances to take back momentum, but never could really grasp it. On four separate occasions, the Minutemen rallied to tie the game with a critical offensive play, and all four times the Gamecocks raced down the court and re-took the lead on the next possession.
The crowd at the Mullins Center erupted each time UMass pulled itself even with South Carolina, but those cheers were short-lived. McCall said one of the more disappointing parts about the loss was that the Minutemen didn’t make South Carolina work hard enough to recapture the lead after those momentum-shifting plays.
“We were in the wrong spots and they did a good job of inbounding the ball quickly and it was like two passes, layups,” McCall said. “… That was the disappointing part, you fight back, you tie it and then you give up a layup on the other end. That was disappointing.”
SO CLOSE FOR PIERRE — Pierre was just one rebound shy of his first career double-double, but the junior guard still finished with a team-high nine boards to set his own career best. The rebounds all seemed to come at vital stages for the Minutemen whether they were defensive rebounds that stopped the Gamecocks from collecting more second-chance points, or the offensive rebound he picked up right before making his layup late in the game.
UMass has struggled in the past two weeks to rebound well against bigger teams, and that has put more of an onus on the Minutemen’s guards to help on the glass.
“We need our guards to get in there and rebound,” McCall said. “Carl’s got those long arms, he’s a very gifted, he’s a good rebounder. T.J. Weeks is a good rebounder, Sy (Chatman) had seven rebounds, we’ve put a focus on it in practice and it’s translated into the games.”
TURNOVER PRONE — Another key area where UMass struggled was protecting the ball once it was worked into the paint. The Minutemen’s forwards had 13 of the team’s 19 turnovers, led by five each for Chatman and Tre Mitchell. South Carolina scored 20 points of the Minutemen’s miscues, most of which came from UMass not be careful with the ball in the post.
“The one area that our frontcourt players need to do a better job of is taking care of the basketball,” McCall said. “Some of it is positioning, some of it is carelessness at times, we need to do a much better job of those guys not turning it over.”
FAMILIAL CONNECTION — South Carolina coach Frank Martin has a close connection to UMass courtesy of his wife. The former Anya Forrest was a four-year track and field standout for the Minutewomen from 1994-98. She was the 1996 Atlantic 10 champion in both the indoor and outdoor 55-meter hurdles. She graduated with school records in the indoor 55-meter hurdles and outdoor 100-meter hurdles.