AMHERST – Greg Jones doesn’t shoot a lot of 3s. The Southern Connecticut transfer gets lost among the UMass men’s basketball team’s stable of snipers.
La Salle lost track of him on back-to-back possessions midway through the second half at the Mullins Center on Saturday, and Jones buried back to back 3s to give UMass the lead for good in an 80-74 Atlantic 10 win.
“I work on ‘em so, why not?” said Jones, who scored 10 points. “We had to grind that one out. If I had to shoot it, it had to go in because they were on a run.”
The Explorers outscored UMass 23-11 over the first 1o minutes, 16 seconds in the second half. They trimmed a 17-point first half deficit to 12 at the break then kept snipping in the second frame.
Back-to-back triples for Greg! 🙌#Flagship 🚩 pic.twitter.com/dTNAV0MU20
— UMass Men’s Basketball (@UMassBasketball) February 19, 2022
The Minutemen (12-13, 5-8) built the lead with an 18-2 run over 7 minutes in the first half. T.J. Weeks Jr. put them up 26-13 with a free throw.
“We didn’t have the energy, we didn’t have the fight, we didn’t have the juice,” La Salle coach Ashley Howard said. “We got it back toward the end of the first half.”
La Salle’s Anwar Gill missed a free throw with 32 seconds left, but Mamadou Doucoure grabbed the offensive rebound and kicked it out to Jhamir Brickus (18 points) for a 3 that brought the Explorers within a dozen at the break.
“I thought that was huge. That gave them some momentum going into the locker room,” UMass coach Matt McCall said. “We talked at the half, we’ve got to be aggressive, this lead can evaporate. Sure thing, it evaporated, right?”
Jack Clark (18 points) tied the game for La Salle (7-17, 2-12) with a 3 with 10:19 remaining, making it 48-48. That was the first time the game was even since 11-11.
“It’s hard to get teams to continue to fight and continue to believe and we do that, and as long as my guys do that I can live with that,” Howard said.
C.J. Kelly immediately responded with a 3 for UMass to return the lead to the Minutemen. It was his first 3 of the game and helped quench a dry spell. Kelly had hit just three 3s in his past seven games, shooting just 12 percent over that stretch. He drained 2-of-3 against the Explorers and scored a team-high 18 points, his most since dropping 19 against Duquesne in early January.
Kelly also added eight rebounds, a steal and a block.
💪💪💪
💥 @cj_kelly12#Flagship 🚩 pic.twitter.com/lNdsAbWo2b
— UMass Men’s Basketball (@UMassBasketball) February 19, 2022
“I’m more proud that he went out and grabbed eight rebounds, and he had some big ones when the game was on the line,” McCall said. “He should have had three or four assists, we missed some wide open shots off his playmaking. He was terrific.”
Christian Ray responded with another 3 that knotted the game for the last time at 51. Enter Jones, who is shooting 43.2 percent from beyond the arc this season. His back to back triples keyed a 10-2 UMass run where Jones scored eight of the 10 points. It gave the Minutemen a 61-53 lead that provided enough cushion.
“He’s a good shooter. Greg doesn’t take bad ones, either. He doesn’t try to force it,” McCall said.
Jones and Kelly bolstered a 35-6 advantage in bench points for UMass. All eight Minutemen that played scored. Rich Kelly added 17 points, his sixth double-digit output in the past seven games. Michael Steadman added 12 points and seven rebounds, while Noah Fernandes put up 10 despite struggling from the field (3-of-12).
“The best teams I’ve been fortunate to be a part of, there’s always been great balance,” McCall said. “There’s too much firepower out there for us to not have balance.”
The Minutemen only registered 12 assists but moved the ball better than that stat shows.
“Our intent on offense was to make the right play,” McCall said. “I think we missed some open looks, but I didn’t think we were forcing 3’s.”
UMass generated 34 points in the paint, outscoring La Salle by 10. They also forced 18 La Salle turnovers and turned them into 23 points.
“We had a lot of self inflicted mistakes in the first half,” Howard said. “Turnovers crushed us in this game.”
Kyle Grabowski can be reached at kgrabowski@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @kylegrbwsk.