AMHERST — Through about 13 minutes of action, it looked as if the UMass men’s basketball team was going to do something very few teams have done all season: shut down Davidson forward Reed Bailey, who leads the Atlantic 10 in points per game (20.0) this year.

The junior started Wednesday night’s contest 0-for-5 from the field, with the Minutemen frontcourt seemingly disrupting his rhythm on the majority of his touches. However after Bailey scored 13 of the last 19 Davidson points of the first half, it became evident that UMass had nothing to do with Bailey’s slow start – he just didn’t convert on his early looks.

Bailey continued to control the game across the final 20 minutes, and his 21-point, 10-rebound effort propelled the Wildcats to a 77-68 win in front of 2,529 at Mullins Center. He made 10 of his next 11 shots to finish 10-for-16 on the night.

“That’s what’s so special about him. He may miss two or three early, but you know he’s going to figure it out,” Davidson head coach Matt McKillop said of Bailey. “I think maybe he rushed a few. [UMass has] such good shot blockers, and we knew it. He just had to see it. But I thought he was so balanced, so under control in the second half. He just continues to shine.”

A pair of Bailey layups and a Mike Loughnane easy one capped off a 13-4 Davidson run to give it a 75-58 advantage at the 3:45 mark of the second half. UMass responded with 10 straight points over the next three minutes, but it was much too late as the Minutemen dropped to 11-14 and 6-6 in the conference – good for seventh in the standings.

UMass’ two leading scorers – Rahsool Diggins (17.6 points per game) and Jaylen Curry (12.8 ppg) – combined to shoot 9-for-35, including an abysmal 4-for-16 from behind the arc. Even still the Minutemen were only trailing 50-48 with 12 minutes to go.

But it didn’t matter. Simply put, they weren’t nearly good enough to win Wednesday’s game.

“We didn’t have the ‘pop’ that you’ve got to have to win a game in this league,” UMass head coach Frank Martin said. “At shootaround today, I told the team after that I didn’t know if I was at a workout or if I was at a funeral. I didn’t know which one I was at. I tried to give them perspective about how hard they’ve worked to put us in a place where we’re playing meaningful games at this time of year to see if it got them excited... disappointed obviously with the loss, frustrated that we can’t take care of home court.

In typical fashion the Minutemen shot only 40 percent from the field while Davidson shot 48. Where they almost always make up for their poor shooting is on the glass, but the Wildcats grabbed nine more rebounds (41-32) than UMass – including a 24-12 disparity at halftime.

As has been said in the past, the Minutemen have to work extremely hard for each basket they get – they aren’t capable of scoring in bunches in a short time like Davidson did on several occasions on Wednesday (at one point the Wildcats scored six points in 28 seconds). Not only was that the case, they were also outworked and out-hustled. UMass was also once again below 50 percent (12-for-25) on layups and it only shot 10 free throws.

That combination isn’t going to translate to many victories for any team, especially this one.

“For us to have a chance, if we’re not going to shoot a great percentage – which, we’re 25 games in, and it is what it is – then we better rebound it and we better not cheat our possessions by turning [the ball] over,” Martin said. “We need to take advantage of our possessions. Today, we took advantage of our possessions, but we didn’t make layups, we didn’t get to the foul line and we didn’t rebound the basketball.”

Both Davidson and UMass made the same amount of 3-pointers (seven), but the Wildcats w ent 5-for-11 in the second half and each of the five came in key moments that put the Minutemen away.

Out of the break, the Minutemen turned a 38-29 deficit to 40-39 – a 10-2 run that was sparked by a pair of thunderous dunks in transition. Rivera punched home the first one, followed up by a one-handed stuff from Ndjigue. Life was in the building, and on the UMass sideline.

But Davidson’s Hunter Adam and Bobby Durkin splashed a pair of long balls on back-to-back possessions shortly after to steal momentum back. A number of the Wildcats’ open 3s came off of kick-out passes from Bailey, who made the correct play time and time again in the post.

The Minutemen elected not to double-team Bailey because of his elite playmaking, and it was on display. He only ended with three assists, but he added many hockey assists as well.

“Go double him and it’s an adventure,” Martin said of Bailey. “We had no pop. We couldn’t sustain [defensive] effort. We had moments where we tried, but we just couldn’t sustain. [Bailey is] dying for you to go double him, and they put shooters on the back side. We were prepared for those passes that broke our back in the second half… we [didn’t talk enough] on those backside rotations.”

Curry (5-for-16) finished with 14 points, Rivera added a dozen points but only grabbed three rebounds (averages eight this season) while Diggins (11 points) and Jayden Ndjigue (10 points, six rebounds, five assists) rounded out the Minutemen’s double-digit scoring.

UMass, who was the No. 4 seed in the A-10 coming into Wednesday, drops back to No. 7 and out of a double-bye slot. The Minutemen host St. Bonaventure (17-8, 5-7 A-10) on Saturday afternoon. They haven’t lost back-to-back games since the first two contests of league play.