AMHERST – Frank Martin sensed it.
The UMass men’s basketball coach warned the Minutemen they were in for a bad day with how they were practicing. He was disappointed after a narrower than it should have been win over South Florida. Martin called out the team’s leadership after they coasted through the second half against Albany.
Lethargy overtook UMass in Thursday’s 85-80 loss against UMass Lowell, the first time the River Hawks defeated the Minutemen as a Division I opponent.
“We’ve regressed in our preparation and our attention to detail. I don’t want to call myself Nostradamus, but I think I’ve been on the saddle for 38 years. I know when something’s coming,” Martin said. “I knew the team we’re playing today, and I know the team we’ll play on Sunday. We got no chance of beating them with the enthusiasm and the discipline that we’ve been playing with.”
UMass (7-2) will face Hofstra (6-4) at 7 p.m. Sunday during the Basketball Hall of Fame Invitational at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The Pride are on a two-game losing streak against George Mason and Purdue but have played one of the tougher schedules in the nation.
“I don’t think there’s a lot of people on our schedule right now that when we’re playing how we play and everyone’s healthy that can beat us,” UMass forward Matt Cross said. “The problem with us is coach has been honest for two weeks about it. We’re just not the same. We haven’t been playing the same team and really locking in on what we’re supposed to do and our identity that we developed early on. It’s just getting outplayed and not really playing any D, and we don’t have any consistency. One guy is doing one thing one game, and one guy is not doing something next game and next game is reversed and that’s all of us.”
The Minutemen’s six-game winning streak was their longest since 2015. They were off to their best start since 2013-14, when UMass began the season 10-0 and last made the NCAA Tournament. It won the Myrtle Beach Invitational, but the cracks began forming once the Minutemen returned.
“As good as everything felt three weeks ago when we left Myrtle Beach, it feels equally bad right now even though I knew it was coming,” Martin said.
The Minutemen were out rebounded in three straight games before pulling down 38 boards compared to Lowell’s 30. They couldn’t stop River Hawks point guard Ayinde Hikim, who posted a career-high 23 points to go along with seven assists and six rebounds.
Lowell shot 56.4 percent from the field – 69.23 in the second half.
“I feel like this exact thing [Martin] was talking about,” UMass guard T.J. Weeks Jr. said. “He even said it at halftime and after the game like, this has been coming for the past two weeks and now you have to take your medicine.”
The River Hawks built a 17-4 lead early and never relinquished it. UMass expended too much trying to shave the deficit multiple times as Lowell bombed response 3 after response 3 to keep them at bay.
“He doesn’t care who we’re playing, punch them in the mouth and get on the line and bring it to him every time,” Cross said. “If you bring it every time, most teams will crack and not want to deal with all game. It’s a discipline, it’s something that we’ve got to keep doing all game.”
Hopefully that’s lesson learned.
“(Thursday) we took our medicine, and if we keep taking our medicine then we’ll heal and we’ll get back to who we need to be,” Martin said.
Because he’s been doing it so long, Martin knows how to keep everything in perspective. There are good days as well as bad days.
“Stick with us, man. We’re gonna figure this out. We’ve got good dudes, and we’re gonna work. We’re not going away,” Martin said. “We didn’t sign up for a day. We signed up for a journey. The journey requires good days and bad days and today is one of those bad days but we need our fans to understand that we’re in this journey to the finish line.”
Kyle Grabowski can be reached at kgrabowski@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @kylegrbwsk.