UNCASVILLE, CONN. — There wasn’t much more Matt McCall could ask from his team in the second half Saturday.
Tre Mitchell fueled an 11-0 UMass run to end the first half and the Minutemen opened the second half with two looks at potentially tying the game. But the open shots Mitchell created for his teammates with his dominance didn’t fall.
It was the exact game plan McCall scripted for his team — let Mitchell be a distributor from the post and find his sharpshooters for open 3s. Except against Virginia, with the nation’s best defense, Carl Pierre and T.J. Weeks struggled to find any luck with the rims at the Mohegan Sun Arena. UMass made just 5-of-26 from behind the arc and the Cavaliers ground out a 58-46 win over the Minutemen in the semifinals of the 2019 Air Force Reserve Basketball Hall of Fame Tip-Off in Uncasville, Connecticut.
“They adjusted and started double-teaming him and he made some great passes out of those double teams,” McCall said. “We got wide-open looks that normally go down for us and they didn’t go down for us. That’s part of the game, but if you kick in three or four more of those, we’re sitting here in a one- or two-possession game going down to the wire. I’m not worried about those shots going down for us.”
The game seemed to start slipping away from UMass (5-1) in the first half when Virginia went on an 8-0 run to stretch its lead to 16 with three minutes and 34 seconds left in the half. At that point, the Cavaliers (5-0) were shooting 50 percent from the floor while limiting the Minutemen to 25 percent.
But then Mitchell literally put his shoulder down and went to work to rally UMass. The freshman scored six of his 10 points during that critical run by simply outmuscling and outmanuevering his defenders in the post. He ducked through defenders sent to try to slow him down and created open chances for himself.
“Just making their bigs move their feet because they were struggling guarding it,” Mitchell said. “Pump fakes, they were biting at, and I was just finishing through contact.”
Virginia closed down on Mitchell in the second half and started sending double teams at the big man. He attempted just two shots in the second half — both misses — but otherwise worked to distribute the ball out of the post to his teammates. By forcing the Cavaliers to collapse on Mitchell, UMass was able to get open shots for Pierre and Weeks, its two best shooters.
Yet just 72 hours after making 10-of-15 from behind the arc in a win over Rider, the duo made just 5 of their 17 3-point attempts against Virginia. Three of those makes came in the final four minutes as UMass made a furious rally to cut the deficit to nine with a minute and 26 seconds left in the game.
“I don’t think there’s going to be too many nights like that, like coach said,” Pierre said. “We put in enough work that I have faith those shots will fall. It does feel like a missed opportunity, but we’ll move onto the next one.”
The Minutemen will face the loser of the second semifinal between Arizona State and St. John’s in the consolation game Sunday at 3:30 p.m. at the Mohegan Sun Arena.