CHESTNUT HILL – A man once said, “As if it matters the way a man falls, when the fall is all he has left, it matters greatly.”
If you asked nearly any of the 8,526 fans in attendance at the Conte Forum on Saturday night, they would say that the fall was all UMass (4-2) had left in the second half. After falling behind 44-21 at No. 13 Boston College (7-0) in the opening stanza, things looked bleak for the Minutemen as they reemerged from the locker room at halftime. But head coach Steve Lappas was optimistic and confident that his team could turn it around in the final 20 minutes.
“I didn’t even yell at the guys at halftime, we missed a lot of easy shots and a lot of foul shots and that frustrated our young guys,” Lappas said. “But I told them, if we play like this in the second half and just make those shots we’ll be okay.”
And they did start to make those shots and they did find a way to fight and claw their way back into the game, almost pulling off one of the greatest comebacks in school history.
Leading the ferocious second half comeback was a trio of players from the Boston area. Shannon Crooks, Anthony Anderson and Raheim Lamb combined for 40 of the Maroon and White’s 57 second-half points on 15-of-25 shooting. However, it was just not enough as the Eagles held on for the 80-78 victory in the seventh annual Commonwealth Classic.
Trailing by 23 at the break, it would have been easy for the Minutemen to put their heads down and accept their fate. However, the team came out inspired and opened the half on a 32-11 run to cut the lead, which at one point was as large as 26, down to four.
Crooks, Lamb and Micah Brand had seven points apiece during this run to get UMass back into the game and help set the tone for the game’s final seven and a half minutes. But it was the play of Anderson, Lappas’ sophomore point guard, that shone brightest in the second half.
Anderson, who collected his second Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Week award on Sunday, ran the UMass offense near flawlessly for 19 minutes in the second half, collecting three assists and two steals as well as scoring 14 points, including three three-pointers in the final 15 seconds, en route to a career-high 19 on the night. But it was his floor leadership that most impressed Lappas.
“He took big steps tonight. He had three turnovers in 36 minutes against a team that averages 10 steals a game,” he said. “I thought that part of his game was tremendous, his floor game was excellent and obviously he knocked out some shots at the end. He was an offensive threat tonight which he needs to be because he’s a good player.”
“That’s one of the things that Coach Lappas talks about all the time, not turning the ball over,” Anderson said. “As a point guard I can’t have five, six or seven turnovers a game so I try and limited my turnovers, and do.”
With Anderson running the show and handling the BC press, the rest of the Minutemen focused on other aspects of their games. Crooks intensified his defensive effort on Troy Bell, BC’s All-American, and began to knock down some shots of his own at the other end, while Lamb was beginning to find his scoring touch.
“In the first half my shot wasn’t really there, that’s why I wasn’t taking it,” Lamb said. “In the second half I just took my time and let the game come to me.”
Lamb tallied a career-high 12 points on the evening, all of which came in the second half. With 8:28 remaining he got the traveling contingent of UMass fans into an uproar with a vicious two-handed dunk along the baseline off a feed from Eric Williams (10 points, 8 rebounds and 3 assists.) The flush cut the Eagle lead to five at 56-51 and started chants of “We Can’t Hear You” from the Minuteman faithful toward the suddenly silent BC majority.
Despite the comeback falling short, the Minutemen know that the effort put forth in the second half went a long way toward making a statement about the heights that this team can achieve as the season progresses.
” If there is such a thing as a good loss, this is one of them,” Anderson said. “The confidence is going to give us something to get us going Tuesday against UConn.”
