They did it.
The members of the Massachusetts men’s basketball team finally did it. The team that hasn’t had a winning season in five years, the team that has put head coach Steve Lappas on the ropes because of its poor performance during his tenure and the team that has watched its fan base dwindle to an all-time low did the one thing that no one thought it could do – it earned the one win that fans young and old who bleed maroon and white thought they may never see again.
On a cold, winter night in early December, the Massachusetts Minutemen took on, hung with and eventually beat archrival Connecticut – make that defending NCAA National Champion and No. 7 Connecticut – 61-59 before one of the more raucous and supportive crowds in the history of UMass basketball – 9,037 strong.
They accomplished, in one night, what every UMass basketball team since the departure of John Calipari was not able to do. They re-ignited a dormant passion for basketball on the campus of the state university of Massachusetts that hasn’t seen a win of this magnitude in over half a decade, and did so in one small window of time when the eyes of the college basketball world were focused not just on the small college town of Amherst, but ultimately on the return of UMass basketball to the spotlight of national prominence.
“It feels like we just won the National Championship,” Anderson said. “I’ve been waiting my whole career for this, and for it to finally happen is just amazing. It’s an incredible feeling, and I don’t want it to end.
“I still can’t believe what just happened,” sophomore forward Rashaun Freeman added. “I’m going to have to watch it again on SportsCenter to make sure it’s really real.”
Freeman led the Minutemen with a game-high 18 points, while Jeff Viggiano chipped in with 12 points.
Freshman Rudy Gay paced Connecticut with 13 points, and was joined in double-figures by Josh Boone with 12 points and Denham Brown with 11 points.
“This ranks up there with some of my top wins all time,” Lappas said. “These guys really deserved this win, and to see the UMass fans fill the Mullins Center for a night like this is just tremendous.”
With the game tied at 59 with just nine seconds remaining, Freeman’s breakaway lay-up off a feed from classmate Art Bowers on a 2-on-1 fast break gave UMass a 61-59 lead it did not relinquish, as UConn’s Denham Brown was short on a game-winning 3-point attempt at the buzzer, sending the delirious UMass students flooding onto the court in pandemonium.
Feeding off the energy of a raucous student section and a season-best crowd, the Minutemen came flying out of the gates against the defending National Champions. After trading baskets with the Huskies over the first two minutes of action, a pair of easy baskets from Freeman sandwiched around a Stephane Lame dunk helped spark a 12-3 run that gave UMass an early 18-7 lead and further ignited the crowd.
UConn answered back with a mini 5-2 run of its own to pull within seven, but UMass continued its success on the offensive end by scoring the next five points to increase its leads to 25-13 with just under nine minutes to play in the half.
With the Maroon and White struggling on offense in scoring just four points over the final 8:15 of the half, the Huskies utilized four points from Boone and five from Denham Brown as part of a 14-4 run that culminated when Villanueva tied the game at 29 with a breakaway dunk at the 2:03 mark.
Bowers then gave the Minutemen the last laugh before the buzzer, converting on a strong driving layup to give UMass a 31-29 lead heading into intermission.
The Huskies could have elected to hold for the last shot, but Antonio Kellogg attempted an alley-oop lob to Villanueva that the sophomore forward clanged off the side of the rim. The Minutemen then elected to hold for the last shot themselves, but another strong move to the hoop by Bowers ended in the ball rolling in and out as the buzzer sounded.
After UMass scored the initial four points of the second half on a pair of Freeman lay-ups, UConn stormed back with a 13-2 run, highlighted by back-to-back thunderous, breakaway dunks from highly-touted freshman Rudy Gay that gave the Huskies their largest lead of the game at 42-37.
With the teams trading baskets over the next few minutes, UMass was able to even the score when a Lasme free throw and Anderson’s first basket of the game, a 3-pointer at the 8:28 mark, made the score 46-46.
Rashad Anderson answered right back with a 3-pointer of his own, however, and the Huskies used six points from the free throw line to pull ahead by five at 55-50 with just under five minutes to play.
From there the Minutemen battled back, however, and five consecutive points from Connecticut’s own Jeff Viggiano gave UMass a 59-55 lead with 55 seconds to play. Two free throws apiece from Boone and Gay tied the score at 59, before Freeman gave UMass fans a reason to flood the court for the first time in recent history.
