After Saint Joseph demolished the Massachusetts men’s basketball team, 76-47, in their first matchup on Jan. 11 on Hawk Hill, many pointed out that SJU point guard Jameer Nelson had Anthony Anderson’s number.
In that contest, Nelson scored 12 and dished out eight assists while holding Anderson to just five points while making five turnovers.
In Saturday’s regular season finale, however, Anderson held his own, but Nelson beat the entire UMass team (11-17, 6-10 Atlantic 10) with a game-high 28-point performance in 39 minutes of play.
Anderson scored 13 of UMass’ first 14 points and 18 for the game, but it wasn’t enough as Saint Joseph’s won the contest 52-49 and improved to 22-5 (12-4 A-10).
With seven seconds left and UMass down by six, freshman Jeff Viggiano drove to the lane and was fouled by John Bryant. Viggiano made his first attempt from the foul line, and his second shot came off the rim. Senior Jackie Rogers grabbed the offensive rebound for the easy putback to cut the deficit to three with five seconds remaining.
After a UMass timeout, Viggiano stole the Hawks’ inbound pass in the corner and heaved a desperate 3-point attempt that clanked off the rim at the buzzer.
“I was at the baseline,” UMass coach Steve Lappas said. “I saw it coming. I thought it had a chance.”
The Minutemen trailed throughout the second half, but stayed within striking distance the whole way, thanks to a terrible 4-for-21 performance from the Hawks in the second half.
“That’s as bad as we’ve played all year,” Saint Joseph’s coach Phil Martelli said. “Offensively, that’s discouraging. That’s not good basketball at all.”
But the Hawks were able to hold off the Minutemen thanks to 27 second-half free throws. Nelson was the main beneficiary, shooting 15-for-20 from the charity stripe.
In fact, Nelson drew so many fouls – knocking out Anderson and backcourt mates Marcus Cox and Mike Lasme – that Lappas had to play junior walk-on Paco Kotaridis for the final minute of the game.
“I can’t think of the last time I had to play a walk-on player in a game we were still trying to win,” said Lappas, who coached four years at Manhattan and nine at Villanova before coming to UMass prior to last season.
The game had no bearing on the Atlantic 10 standings, as Saint Joseph’s had already clinched the East Division title before the game and the Minutemen were guaranteed the fourth seed in the conference tournament.
