UMass men’s basketball: Minutemen clinch MAC Tourney berth in 94-82 win over Ohio

AMHERST — By the skin of its teeth, the UMass men’s basketball qualified for the MAC Tournament.

The Minutemen clinched a spot in Cleveland after beating Ohio, 94-82, in their regular-season finale on Tuesday at the Mullins Center, combined with Central Michigan losing to Akron, 77-64. UMass will likely be the eighth seed in the MAC postseason tournament.

“Our offense today, I thought, was really good,” Minutemen head coach Frank Martin said. “Our spacing, our passing, our ball movement. Obviously, when Marcus [Banks Jr.] jumps up and starts making jump shots, it makes everything easier.”

Banks Jr. poured in a game-high 31 points for UMass, shooting 6-for-12 from beyond the arc and 9-for-9 from the foul line. The graduate transfer broke a cold spell of two-straight games of 10 points or less in the Minutemen’s season-extending victory.

“Tonight was just one of them nights where the hole was wide and everything was falling,” Banks Jr. said. “It felt good. Just keep coming with the approach of pure confidence and trust and my teammates and their trust in me, to give me that confidence, has been the focus.”

Banks Jr. caught fire in the second half against the Bobcats, knocking down 5-of-7 long balls, plus all nine of his attempts from the charity stripe, for 26 points after the break.

Tuesday’s tilt was essentially a must-win game for UMass and Banks Jr. admitted the team played with an extra sense of urgency in order to keep its season going.

“That was just the mindset, especially after halftime,” Banks Jr. said. “It was too close and we weren’t playing to the standard that we set for ourselves.”

Trailing 39-37 after 20 minutes of action, scoring alternated until about the six minute mark in the second half when Luka Damjanac made a layup to put the Minutemen ahead, 74-73.

UMass proceeded to outscore Ohio, 20-9, to close out the contest, highlighted by consistent contributions from Banks Jr. and Danny Carbuccia (13 points).

“We had ideas today on opportunities where Danny would be able to drive the ball against them,” Martin said. “Danny’s grown up. Danny’s a really good player. He’s got to get better offensively, not passing the ball. He’s competitive as heck defensively.”

Carbuccia converted on three consecutive layups in about a minute, 20 second span to help kick-start UMass’ end-of-game run that closed out the win.

Outside of Banks Jr. and Carbuccia, Leonardo Bettiol (17 points) and Jayden Ndjigue (10 points) propped up the Minutemen’s offense, which hadn’t score 90 or more points since their 99-92 loss to Akron on Feb. 13.

Defensively, switching to a zone seemed to stunt the Bobcats and their leading scorer, Jackson Paveletzke, in particular, as the guard went from 15 points in the first half, to nine points on 1-for-8 shots, during the second frame.

“That slowed him down from getting into that mid-range, where he was getting most of his points in the first half, so that kind of prevented him from attacking,” Banks Jr. said. “We were all talking on defense, we were together and it was like we were moving on a string out there.”

Javan Simmons was Ohio’s next best scorer in the loss, collecting 16 points on 4-for-9 shooting from the field and 8-of-10 makes on free throws.

The Bobcats weren’t proficient from 3-point land, only hitting 18% of their 3s. UMass shot 32% from deep.

The Minutemen will have a week to rest up and prepare for the MAC Tournament as the quarterfinals are set to being on Thursday, March 12.

“Give them credit, they wanted to be in Cleveland,” Martin said. “I’m not saying that we can beat whoever, we’ve shown over the last 18 games that we’re good enough to beat anybody in this league. Now, anybody in this league can also beat us, the record shows that, but why not? Why not go in there and give it a go and be fearless and hopefully this gives us a little confidence, the way we finished this game.”