To win the Atlantic 10 Tournament, a team needs to string together four consecutive wins.

Putting together a winning streak of just two is something that has avoided the Massachusetts men’s basketball team almost all year.

After overcoming two hurdles UMass has faced all year -’- finishing games late and winning on the road ‘- in its win over Saint Joseph‘s last Sunday, the team seemed poised to win its first consecutive A-10 conference games all year. But after a 94-77 loss to Duquesne (17-9, 8-5 A-10) Wednesday at the Mullins Center, the Minutemen (10-16, 5-8 A-10) found themselves stumbling over a different hurdle.

For senior point guard Chris Lowe, it is beyond him why the Minutemen keep coming up short after a win.

‘Man I can’t even explain it to tell you the truth,’ Lowe said after the Wednesday’s loss. ‘We can’t find a way to string a few games together. I don’t know what it is.’

The only streak UMass has been able to put together this season was a four game winning streak from Dec. 10 to Dec. 27 (wins against Holy Cross, then-No. 23 Kansas, Hofstra, and IUPUI). Since then, the Minutemen have failed to win back-to-back games in five tries and all in conference play.

Even more frustrating for the Minutemen is four out of their five wins came against teams with .500 record or better, including wins over Temple and Dayton, the second- and fourth-place teams in the conference.

‘That is a tough lesson there to learn, when you win a nice game or a big game to come back and put that game behind you,’ UMass coach Derek Kellogg said. ‘I don’t think we’ve done that. It seems like at times we rest on the last game instead of preparing for the next game as a team.’

The closest UMass has come to winning back-to-back games came after its victory over Temple. Following the victory, the Minutemen fell on the road in overtime to Charlotte, 69-64, after having a six-point lead with 2 minutes, 6 seconds to go in regulation.

While UMass’ only chance of making the NCAA tournament is a run through the A-10 Tournament, the issue of winning consecutive games is something they must overcome quickly. Even in a night when the team hit a school record 16 3-point shots, UMass couldn’t overcome the one bump they must to have any chance in the A-10 Tournament.

And with just three games remaining, the Minutemen cannot put together a streak in conference play that would equate to the kind of streak they would need to win the conference tournament.

‘I wanted to be able to put two, three, four games in a row so our guys felt we could go to Atlantic City and win the tournament and have something to look back on and say ‘You know we have won four games in a row’,’ Kellogg said.

While UMass won’t be able to say they have won four conference games in a row, Kellogg does have another idea to pitch to his team, even if it may be a stretch.

‘The good thing is we haven’t played four days in a row so I can use that to say ‘Listen, we haven’t played four games back to back to back to back’, and I’m hoping we can use that to our benefit,’ Kellogg said.

The one thing Kellogg can use to help his team come the A-10 tournament is the ability of the Minutemen to play up to their opponents. As well as UMass’ victories over St. Joe’s, Temple and Dayton the Minutemen almost knocked off the class of the A-10 Xavier, when they fell at then-No. 10 Xavier, 80-82.

While it is easy to point fingers for all the struggles UMass has had ‘- whether it is the road struggles, finishing games or winning consecutive games ‘- the players know that won’t help.

‘It is late in the season and we can’t make excuses and we can’t blame coaches, so we just have to blame ourselves,’ Lowe said after the game. ‘We just got to blame all nine of us who played in the game.’

Jeffrey R. Larnard can be reached at jlarnard@dailycollegian.com.