AMHERST – Sydney Taylor flew out of the gates for the UMass women’s basketball team on Tuesday night, setting the tone for the rest of what ultimately was a dominant 79-56 win over Iona at the Mullins Center.
Taylor led the team in scoring with 25 points, 15 of those coming in the first quarter, and was the main reason that the Minutewomen led 21-12 after the first 12 minutes. After knocking down three 3s, she committed a couple of personal fouls early and had to head to the bench, but not before putting the Gaels in a sizable hole they couldn’t dig themselves out of.
“She had more points than minutes,” UMass head coach Tory Verdi said of Taylor. “I thought she did a nice job with being ready and knocking down shots for us. She was good in transition as well.”
“That’s definitely a confidence boost,” Taylor said on her dominant start. “I had an issue in the past couple games, so I knew I needed to step up a little bit. Coming in, I was 4-for-11 last game, so I need to come in and hit some shots.”
Sam Breen picked up a double-double, her second consecutive this season, aiding the Minutewomen with 13 points and 13 rebounds.
Iona struggled beyond the arc in the first half, missing all seven 3s it attempted, though its defense gave the Minutewomen some headaches clogging up the passing lanes on a couple of possessions in the first frame. As the game went on, the team’s communication got better, and they were able to anticipate more of what Iona threw at them defensively.
“We started communicating early on the screens. That was big for us,” UMass’ Angelique Ngalakulondi said. “As the game kept going on, we kept talking to each other, louder, louder, louder, calling everything out when we knew what to do on those screens.”
The Minutewomen (3-0) scored more by committee the rest of the way with Makennah White, Breen, Destiney Philoxy and Ngalakulondi all stepping up offensively.
After a more closely-contested start to the second quarter, Philoxy hit a timely 3 early with the shot clock ticking down to bump the energy back up. Breen posted up in the paint and put up a nice reverse layup to give the Minutewomen their double-digit lead back. UMass closed out the second quarter with a 12-0 run, including three back-to-back layups by Ngalakulondi that drew fouls and sent her to the free throw line, where she completed both shots to earn the extra point.
Iona could not manage to put the ball in the net, and the Minutewomen out-rebounded Iona 15-3 in the second period, not giving them any second chances to creep back.
Verdi said they knew going into the game that they were the stronger team, and it allowed UMass to rely on their deep bench to give players breaks and keep everyone fresh.
“(We have) a deep bench, so we can rotate people, we can get people fresh minutes and everyone has fresh legs, and everyone’s not playing the same amount of minutes,” Taylor said. “It’s a big help to have people come off the bench and play for us.”
The Gaels came out stronger in the third quarter, but still couldn’t get anything on UMass, with the Minutewomen outscoring them 23-18 in the third frame. White continued her strong play in the paint, throwing up two layups to start the third and answering back both of Iona’s opening buckets.
The fourth was much of the same, with UMass’ defense not allowing the Gaels any time or space to set up any offense. Iona finally managed to hit a few 3s late, going 4-for-6 in the final quarter, but it was too little, too late.
The Minutewomen went 8-for-12 from the free throw line, a marked improvement from a rough 54.5-percent success rate against Harvard and an even worse 52.9-percent mark against Central Connecticut. That said, Verdi knows its something the team still has to work on, and while they’re currently sitting at 3-0 early this season, the team knows there’s more work to be done.
“I told our team, we’re chasing perfection, and we’re nowhere close, you know, but we have high expectations,” Verdi said. “I thought we could have been a little bit cleaner, you know, but overall, I thought it was a really good performance.”
The team won’t have much rest, as they prepare to hit the road for the first time this season this upcoming weekend, traveling to Holy Cross on Friday.
“It’s going to be different for sure. We’re not shooting in our gym, we’re shooting in someone else’s,” Taylor said. “But I think it’s important to go down with the same mentality we’ve had the past three games – just dominate.”