AMHERST — There was a debate about who deserved credit for UMass’ only block of the game.
Preston Santos rose higher and came down with the ball after the rejection – earning him the official credit – but Carl Pierre also got a piece of Xavier Johnson’s layup with 12 seconds left in the game. Either way, the Minutemen protected the rim when it mattered most against George Mason on Sunday.
UMass has struggled all season with defending penetration in man defense, but when Johnson blew past Pierre looking for the game-tying bucket, Santos was there in the perfect spot. The freshman jumped vertically and snatched the shot out midair to preserve the Minutemen’s 69-67 win over the Patriots at the Mullins Center.
“I saw him driving down the lane and I knew I had help side, so I stepped over,” Santos said. “It was either I could take a charge or sometimes you’ve got to risk it and hopefully the risk is worth it. I was like I might as well go for this block and I tried to keep my hands straight up because last time I tried to take a charge they called a block. I just tried to keep my hands straight up and see if he tries to lay the ball up on me, and he did. I just grabbed it and came down with it.”
It was the signature moment of yet another career day for Santos since he entered the starting lineup two weeks ago. His 17 points bested his previous season high, which he set in his first career start, and he had a season-best four assists to go along with five rebounds, all of which were team highs Sunday. He also hit the only two 3-pointers UMass made, sinking them on back-to-back possessions to stretch the Minutemen’s lead to 10 both times.
In a season full of impressive performances from UMass freshmen Tre Mitchell, T.J. Weeks and Sean East II, coach Matt McCall said Santos’ was one of the best thus far.
“The performance that Preston Santos had was as good as any performance any of our freshmen have had all year,” McCall said. “We’ve had some good ones – Tre’s had some good ones, T.J.’s had some good ones, Sean’s had some good ones – but this one is right there. To see him make that play with the game on the line, he made huge 3s with the game on the line, too, but that (block) was the biggest play of the game.”
The block saved the Minutemen (10-14, 4-7 Atlantic 10) from facing a lot of difficult questions about letting another game slip away. UMass led by 14 points with 5 minutes, 21 seconds left, giving them a 98.3 percent chance of winning, according to ESPN’s win probability metric.
Yet over the next four minutes, the Patriots (13-10, 2-8) went on a 14-0 run that was sparked by the Minutemen’s struggles against the George Mason press. UMass had four turnovers in that span, the last three of which led to the final seven points of the Patriots’ spurt, and missed all four of its shots during the run, too. The Minutemen made just three of their five free throws over the final minute of the game, but played good enough defense to not allow George Mason a clean look at tying or winning the game.
“We can’t think a team is going to bow down,” freshman Tre Mitchell said. “At the end of the day, they want to win the basketball game, too. You can’t let off at any point. People have done the same thing to us, people have killed us, they keep going, you can’t just compete for 10 minutes then let off for two or three minutes and let them get a run.”
The inconsistent effort was a trend that began at the opening tipoff. UMass had turnovers on each of its first three possessions, forcing McCall to do a wholesale substitution just a minute into the game. Although the energy level improved, UMass still wasn’t executing crisply in the opening nine minutes and committed six total turnovers in that span to trail 20-10 at the media timeout.
UMass responded with inspired basketball as part of a 15-0 run, fueled in part by scoring 16 points off George Mason’s 12 turnovers in the first half. The trend continued in the second half as the Minutemen scored nine off their nine takeaways in the first 15 minutes of the stanza.
“It’s all effort, that’s literally all it is,” Mitchell said. “There’s no trick or anything, it’s all effort, sitting down, guarding, making them do something and keep pressure on the ball. A lot of people when they get pressure they just throw it in the stands.”