UMass basketball: Minutemen fall apart down the stretch, hand Saint Louis key A-10 victory
Published: 02-04-2025 10:43 PM |
AMHERST — It’s become almost normal at this point. In recent memory, any time the UMass men’s basketball team starts to play well and garners attention from the fan base, it seemingly finds a way to let them down. Such was the case on Tuesday night in front of a season-high 3,745 fans at Mullins Center as the Minutemen fell 73-71 to Saint Louis with third place in the Atlantic 10 on the line.
UMass (10-13, 5-5 A-10) held a 71-66 advantage in the final minute of the second half and possessed the ball. Daniel Rivera dribbled it into the frontcourt, put his head down and attacked the hoop – ill-advised given the time and score. Rivera threw the ball away, leading to an Isaiah Swope layup at the other end.
The Billikens fouled Jaylen Curry on the ensuing possession to preserve time, but he missed the front end of the 1-and-1 and Saint Louis was headed back the other way. Kalu Anya then scored to make it 71-70, UMass at this point desperately clinging to its lead. Jayden Ndjigue threw the ball away on the inbound pass, and the ball swung to Swope for a wide-open 3. His shot clanked off the rim, but Amari Mccottry sprawled on a loose ball and kicked it right back to Swope.
He set his feet, let it fly and watched it rattle in to give Saint Louis a 73-71 lead.
UMass head coach Frank Martin called timeout to set up a play, and it led to Rahsool Diggins driving inside and getting his layup blocked by Anya underneath the rim. Saint Louis ended the game on a 7-0 run over the final 37 seconds of the game, and UMass didn’t make a field goal the last 4 minutes, 24 seconds of action in a complete and utter collapse.
“Obviously extremely disappointed,” Martin said postgame. “The grit that this team has embraced to help us become a good basketball team, you saw it today… Turnover, missed free throws. They miss a 3, we got a chance to come up with the ball to ice the game, and instead of picking the ball up we try to dribble the ball off the court versus three guys. They made the play and then Swope makes the 3.”
For 39 of the 40 minutes, the Minutemen were the more physical, aggressive team. But all it took was Saint Louis (14-9, 7-3) to be that for one minute to flip the game on its head. UMass had 21 offensive rebounds, forced 15 Billikens turnovers and shot a whopping 16 more shots than the visitors – yet the Minutemen still lost the game.
It’s the style of play they have to partake in to win games. It has to be sloppy, essentially a bar fight. UMass more often than not isn’t going to be the more talented team, so it has to work that much harder every single possession.
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When the Minutemen lose games like Tuesday night’s tilt – one where they led by 10 with under seven minutes to go – it’s deflating.
Saint Louis head coach Josh Schertz noted the qualities that make UMass such a difficult team to play against.
“They’re so physical,” Schertz said. “It’s a street fight. When the ball goes up, they’re coming. And you better match their physicality, you better match their toughness, you better match their effort – and we didn’t tonight… I had to use that timeout early in the second half because I could see in our body language, you know, [UM ass was] starting to impose their will on us. And then we’d make a play to spring ourselves back into it, they would go get two or three offensive rebounds and stick something back in.”
UMass was an abysmal 9-for-29 on layups Tuesday night. Finishing around the rim has been a struggle for the Minutemen all season long, and it came back to bite them against Saint Louis. Several of them were contested, but the majority of the 20 misses were ones that UMass certainly should have converted on.
Martin’s plays are working, and players are open down low, but the Minutemen aren’t executing.
“My job as a coach is to create the space to get guys layups,” Martin said. “As players, you got to make the shots. I’m not trying to pass blame.”
Jaylen Curry led the way offensively, scoring a team-high 16 points including three 3-pointers. But the sophomore guard shot 1-for-6 from the line, and missed several key free throws down the stretch. Rivera (14 rebounds) and Daniel Hankins-Sanford (seven boards) scored 14 points apiece, and Jayden Ndjigue tossed in eight points.
Diggins’ stretch of unconscious shooting came to a close on Tuesday night, going 2-for-15 (1-for-10 from distance) en route to his third-lowest point total of the year (five).
“I’m not too worried about making shots, we were winning the game,” Diggins said. “As long as we were winning, I was cool.”
“At Duquesne, Rahsool bailed us out because he made shots,” Martin added. “Well, Rahsool is beat up right now. So obviously he couldn’t make shots and bail us out today. But we still had a lead. Just not very good the last 40 seconds of the game, obviously… We were in total control of the game.”
What could have prevented the eventual game-ending 7-0 run that Saint Louis went on was Rivera dribbling the ball out by the perimeter instead of leaving his feet to make a pass in a 3-on-5 situation with UMass ahead by five and plenty of time left on the shot clock. But he decided to drive in and throw it away, and the letdown soon followed.
“Rivera coming 100 miles per hour, that’s not a good decision on his part,” Martin said. “As a coach, you don’t live in a guy’s brain when the game is going 100 miles per hour. You got to make a better decision there. And the players on the court, instead of running to the corner, they should have stopped to make [Rivera] understand there’s nowhere to go. But that’s a turnover, and you can’t have turnovers. Bottom line is we didn’t get a single stop the last three times [Saint Louis] had the ball.”
UMass travels to La Salle on Sunday afternoon looking to sweep the season series with the Explorers.