They didn’t have the lead once in the first 38 minutes of play. Their best player spent 10 minutes of the first half sitting on the bench. They fell behind by 11 points early in the second half. It wasn’t pretty, but they won the game.
Nekole Smith went 4-for-4 from the field in overtime, scoring the extra frame’s first four points, to lead the Massachusetts women’s basketball team [6-14, 4-5 Atlantic 10] to a 65-58 win over the Dayton Flyers last night at the William D. Mullins Center.
Smith scored 14 of her game-high 18 points in the second half and overtime. The scoring output was also the junior’s season-high.
UMass didn’t take the lead until Jennifer Butler tipped in a Paige Harris missed free throw with 1:51 left in regulation. The field goal was just Butler’s third of the game.
Prior to Butler’s tip-in, Harris ran off a personal 4-0 run that brought the Minutewomen to within one point.
Dayton jumped out to an early lead behind guard Chrissy Donovan, who scored 11 of her team’s first 21. The junior shot 3-for-5 from behind the arc in the first half, but cooled down, along with the rest of her team, after the first eight minutes of action. The Flyers came out of the gates with a 4-for-6 performance from three-point land and 6-for-10 from the field in those first minutes, but couldn’t buy a basket in the half’s 12 remaining minutes (3-for-15 from the floor the rest of the way).
The poor shooting by Dayton allowed an equally struggling Maroon and White squad to stay within reach despite a combined 1-for-10 first half performance by Butler and freshman Katie Nelson.
Butler was struggling enough in the first half for Coach Joanie O’Brien to sit her for 10 of the game’s first 20 minutes.
It was junior forward Amber Sneed who led UMass’ offensive attack in the first half, shooting a perfect 4-for-4 from the field in 15 minutes of action.
Having realized how much she struggled offensively in the first half, Butler decided to stick with what she does best for the rest of the contest.
“I wasn’t shooting the ball too well,” Butler said, “so I figured I would rebound the ball – that’s what I am best at.”
It was Butler’s knack for grabbing the ball off the iron that swayed the momentum toward the Maroon and White in the second half.
“She played excellent in the last 15 minutes of the game,” O’Brien said. “Every time we needed a big rebound, she went out and grabbed it.”
Butler ended the night with 15 rebounds, seven on the offensive end.
Dayton seemed to put the nail in the coffin with a 5-0 run to start the second half, extending its lead to 34-23. But Nelson came up big with a three and junior Siiri Liivandi put back a Butler miss to keep the game within reach.
UMass took over the game with 4:30 left in regulation with an 11-3 run behind four Smith points and Harris’ personal four-point run.
Two free throws by Nelson with 22 seconds left extended the Minutewomen’s lead to 51-48, but a three-pointer by junior Sarah Allen with 11 seconds left sent the game into overtime.
The Minutewomen forced 24 Dayton turnovers while committing just 13 of their own. Nelson had an impressive 6-to-1 assist to turnover ratio on the evening.
UMass continued to have trouble from the charity stripe, shooting just 50 percent from the line (14-for-28). But Nelson and Smith were able to hang onto victory with an impressive 5-for-7 in the final minute of overtime when Dayton was forced to foul.
O’Brien was pleased with her team’s ability to pull together and muster up enough offense despite her No. 1 option’s struggles.
“It’s a good feeling,” she said. “We had a lot of people step up and do some things.”
UMass will return to action Saturday as host to Xavier at 12 noon.
