AMHERST — According to UMass men’s basketball coach Frank Martin, not one player in his usual starting five – Jaylen Curry, Rahsool Diggins, Jayden Ndjigue, Daniel Rivera and Daniel Hankins-Sanford – suited up for practice on Friday, just 24 hours before the Minutemen were set to host St. Bonaventure at the Mullins Center.

Only six eligible players participated in practice, and it certainly looked like it in the Minutemen’s 73-59 loss to St. Bonaventure on Saturday.

An illness has floated through the UMass locker room all week. Marqui Worthy left immediately following Wednesday’s loss to Davidson to get an IV, and was bed-ridden up until Saturday.

Several Minutemen players vomited as they were taken out of the game throughout the 40 minutes against the Bonnies, body language and facial expressions hinted at sickness, and to make matters worse, Curry sat out with a wrist injury.

That doesn’t excuse the countless mental errors made in UMass’ second consecutive double-digit home defeat.

“Being sick doesn’t mean we should revert to bad habits,” Martin said. “If we don’t have the energy to go block a shot or get a hard rebound, or the legs to make a shot because we’ve been in bed for three days, I get it. But to play selfishly offensively, not compete defensively, that’s what we were back in November. It’s my job, and I got to get it right. We can’t go backward.”

Worthy mustered up the strength to play and joined Tarique Foster in making their first career starts alongside Diggins, Rivera and Hankins-Sanford. Everybody who saw action played hard, yet without Curry and Ndjigue the offense seemed lost more often than not.

UMass went without a field goal for nearly seven minutes of action in the first half, but after a Diggins 3-pointer and an and-one layup from Foster, the Minutemen still only trailed 29-26 at the under four media timeout. Out of the huddle, St. Bonaventure ripped off 10 straight points to end the half – capped by a Noah Bolanga 3 to give the visitors a 39-26 advantage heading to the locker room.

That spurt essentially sealed the Bonnies’ win, because making up 13 points in 20 minutes is a tall task for a lineup featuring offensive limitations. UMass coughed up nine of its 15 total turnovers in the first half (five coming from its starting backcourt of Worthy and Diggins). Aside from obviously helping with the offensive miscues, Curry and Ndjigue also make life easier on Diggins – who has less pressure offensively when those two are out there.

St. Bonaventure could really key in on UMass’ leading scorer with his sidekicks out.

“We had too many turnovers without Jaylen on the court,” Martin said. “And so now you make Rahsool the primary ball handler, and he becomes easier to guard because now people can put two [players] on the ball right away. And Jayden, he’s our most consistent defensive player, our most consistent offensive rebounder and he knows exactly what we’re trying to do offensively… Not having that on the court – two guys that play a lot of minutes – impacts our team.

“That being said,” Martin added, “standing there looking at the ball, not defending, holding the ball on offense, playing selfishly… that basketball doesn’t work. It definitely don’t work when you got guys that are trying to figure out how to be successful college players. Those are bad habits that showed back up today.”

Even down by 20 points (65-45), UMass continued to fight back within 10. The Minutemen played their best stretch of the day over a four-and-a-half minute span late in the second half to climb within 66-56 on the back of an 11-1 run. Rivera sparked it with a tough layup and Diggins finished it with a jumper and pair of free throws.

It was too little, too late though, and the Bonnies sank their shots from the line as the Minutemen attempted to play the foul game to maximize their possessions.

After an abysmal start to the year, one that saddled UMass with a 1-5 record through six games, the Minutemen worked extremely hard to become a respectable basketball team in the Atlantic 10. Not even two weeks ago they were playing for the No. 3 seed in the conference. But a collapse in that contest against Saint Louis has snowballed into three losses in four tries – and the traits that put UMass in position to play in those big games have disappeared of late.

“We went through [early-season struggles]. We didn’t run away from it. We owned it, we grew from it, and we became the best rebounding team in the A-10,” Martin said. “We led the A-10 in points in the paint, and all of a sudden for the last two games, all we do is hold the ball on offense. Nobody moves. There’s no presence.”

Perhaps the lone positive to come out of Saturday’s dud was the emergence of Foster. The sophomore forward scored a team-high 14 points on 4-for-9 shooting, knocked down two 3s and shot 4-for-5 from the free throw line. Coming into the day, Foster had only played in four games – three being blowouts. He hadn’t seen more than six minutes of action.

Yet he rose to the occasion and logged not only 36 minutes, but also Frank Martin’s trust. The third-year head coach said it’s been tough to put Foster in because of how many things Ndjigue does well (those two play the same position). Nonetheless, Martin also added that Foster did plenty to give him confidence to put the Bronx, N.Y. native into the lineup more often moving forward.

Diggins chipped in 13 points on 5-for-16 shooting while rarely having a clean look at the rim, Rivera had 11 points and a team-high seven rebounds while Worthy added nine points, two assists and two boards.

Up next for UMass (11-15, 6-7 A-10) is a road tilt with VCU (20-5, 10-2) on Wednesday night (6 p.m.).