AMHERST – It wasn’t clear what was colder – the weather outside the Mullins Center or the UMass men’s basketball team’s shooting percentage inside it.
The Minutemen struggled mightily on the offensive end in the first half against a Dartmouth team missing its top four point scorers on Tuesday night. The home team shot just 24.7 percent from the field in the opening half while the Big Green converted at a 45.8 percent clip.
The Minutemen needed an answer. TJ Weeks Jr. and Dyondre Dominguez were happy to provide it.
The duo went off in the second half, with Weeks knocking down three triples and Dominguez rattling off 13 second-half points to boost the UMass’ offense to a 68-57 non-conference.
Weeks finished with five triples and 19 points to lead the Minutemen. It wasn’t pretty for the home team, but they got the ‘W’ in the end.
“You gotta have courage to go make plays, and you can’t stand around and wait for plays to be made. You’ve got to have courage to go make them, and those guys did,” UMass coach Frank Martin said on Dominguez and Weeks. “And no surprise, because of the courage about making some shots and actually trying to execute what was called and playing with some aggression rather than this passiveness, our defense got good again.”
Despite Weeks’ impressive performance for the Minutemen, UMass is still looking for its offensive identity with starting point guard Noah Fernandes out with an ankle injury he sustained against Harvard on Dec. 2. Weeks stepped into that spot on Tuesday after just one day of practice at a position he hasn’t touched since his AAU days. It’s something the team will have to manage until Fernandes returns.
“We lost our point guard five games ago, and not pretty, not perfect, but (I’m) really proud of who we’re fighting to become,” Martin said. “When we get back from Christmas [break], now we have to hunker down and start recreating an offensive identity right now, and then keep building.”
The Minutemen (9-3) took an early lead in a game they were expected to win, jumping out to a 6-o advantage off the bat. Dartmouth slowly worked its way back, closing the gap until a Jackson Munro layup tied the game 13-13 at the 13:23 mark. Dartmouth took its first lead of the contest on a Jaren Johnson jumper two minutes later.
The Big Green (4-10) went to work with seven minutes to play. Dartmouth outscored UMass 13-2 over a 4:32 span, punctuated by two back-to-back triples at the end that forced a timeout from Martin. Down 29-20, UMass managed to cut into the deficit thanks in part to a last-second triple from Matt Cross, just the team’s third three-pointer of the game.
The Minutemen went into halftime down 35-28, desperately needing an offensive boost to get back into the game.
Dominguez mentioned that the locker room was “quiet at first” at halftime, but that he and fellow veteran Weeks stepped up to give the team the confidence they needed. After that, they stepped onto the court and executed.
Dominguez sparked some life back into the Mullins Center with a dunk three minutes into the second half, but UMass was still down seven. After his dunk, the duo of Dominguez and Weeks went to work; Dominguez knocked down three more jumpers while Weeks sank three triples, the last of those tying the game 46-46 at the 10:03 mark.
“I think it was energy and confidence,” Weeks said on the changes in the second half. “I think the first half, we saw the looks and turned them down, or just tried to drive and try to make a layup. In the second half we hit shots, and then that opened up the paint for people to make easy layups.”
Over a 4:13 span, UMass outscored Dartmouth 13-2, highlighted by another Dominguez dunk with four minutes left to give UMass a six-point lead, and finally some breathing room. After a pair of Isaac Kante free throws, Dominguez ripped off a triple that brought the crowd to its feet and gave UMass an 63-52 advantage, its largest of the game. That forced a Dartmouth timeout with just over three minutes remaining.
It was game over for Dartmouth. The visitors managed a pair of free throws and a triple in the final three minutes, but UMass held on to its lead for the double-digit victory after outscoring the Big Green by a 40-22 margin after halftime.
The game capped the non-conference portion of the season for the Minutemen, as they are off until opening Atlantic 10 Conference play on Dec. 31 with a road game at St. Bonaventure (2 p.m.).