AMHERST — At its best, UMass has proven it can compete with the best in the Atlantic 10.
It’s how the Minutewomen were able to overcome a 13-point halftime deficit to defeat Davidson on the road earlier this month. But when UMass wasn’t nearly at its best three days later, the Minutewomen lost to conference cellar-dweller George Mason.
Saturday’s loss to Fordham encapsulated every issue UMass has faced in league play this season. When the Minutewomen were on, they battled evenly with the Rams and put themselves in a place to win the game against a perennial A10 contender. It was the 10 minutes they didn’t while shooting 2 of 14 from the floor and being outscored 23-9 that ultimately cost UMass a big victory.
“If play 40 minutes of complete basketball, we can beat anybody in the A10,” coach Tory Verdi said. “We’ve got to figure that part out. We can’t have a period like the second period (against Fordham) and get down and dig ourselves a hole.”
UMass has escaped from those self-inflicted deficits before to win, but those lulls in the action are a main reason the Minutewomen are in the middle of the pack of the A10. The Minutewomen have three losses to teams in the bottom half of the conference, all of which started with not being able to overcome those funks.
The majority of the time, it’s been a prolonged scoring drought that spirals out of control for UMass, and leads to a large deficit on the scoreboard. Verdi said he believes his team sometimes puts too much stock in its offensive performance that it starts to hinder the team on defense when things go wrong on the other end.
“It’s about having carryover (from practice) and not putting pressure on themselves when we struggle to score at times,” Verdi said. “We allow our lack of offensive production to affect who we are, and we can’t do that. You can still win games when you struggle offensively. It’s 40 minutes, so you can’t stop, you can’t quit and you can’t get frustrated, and we’ve seen that in certain periods throughout the game.”
Senior Hailey Leidel said she believes UMass’ consistency needs to start with how the Minutewomen live their daily lives and let it transfer to the basketball court. She said there are times when UMass’ energy wanes and that affects how the team performs during the game.
The guard said she also believes UMass feels the pressure too much at times and allows it to overwhelm their thought processes. She said it’s a reason why the Minutewomen have missed so many layups this season and missed out on some plays that they see on tape but didn’t see live.
“We just need to execute and just kind of relax,” Leidel said. “Sometimes we’re trying to do too much and speed through offenses instead of taking whatever the defense gives us. … When we’re really just slowing down and running the offense like we do every day in practice, we’re really good. Some people get rattled by the pressure or the length and that forces us to take shots that maybe we aren’t comfortable or going too quickly.”
One way Verdi is hoping to address the inconsistency is by potentially expanding his rotation Wednesday at 7 p.m. against league-leading Dayton (17-7, 10-0 Atlantic 10) at the Mullins Center. He said he is hopeful by giving more playing time to some of the younger players on his roster, that UMass (16-8, 6-5) will be more rested all around and therefore able to play at a higher level for longer stretches.
“With the possibility of adding in some of the young ones, they’re going to be able to give some of our returners a breather,” Verdi said. “Maybe we’ll stay a little bit fresher and it will help us stay a little bit more focused.”
Josh Walfish can be reached at jwalfish@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshWalfishDHG. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage.