As a second-year head coach, Derek Kellogg didn’t know what to expect on a team with one senior and nine players who never saw a minute of basketball for last year’s Massachusetts men’s basketball team.
Next year, expectations should be a bit clearer.
The only player in the rotation not returning next year is guard Ricky Harris, the leading scorer for UMass this season. Kellogg doesn’t expect any single person to make up for Harris’ absence next year, but he thinks multiple players will need to take on scoring responsibilities.
One of the positives which comes with losing just one senior is that the learning curve won’t be as steep. The Minutemen are expected to have two freshmen come in next year along with Raphiael Putney, who redshirted this season.
Kellogg believes that having so many returning players will be beneficial next year.
“In reality, this was the first year to build a foundation,” Kellogg said. “The one thing that will be good is the expectation level, and how I do things will be set.”
Guard Anthony Gurley is expected to take over the team in place of Harris. Kellogg was pleased with Gurley’s improvement over the year and thinks he can be very effective
The Wake Forest transfer averaged 13.6 points per game and scored 24 points against Richmond during the Atlantic 10 tournament.
“I think his mental makeup is one of a guy that’s competitive, that wants to do well and embraces the challenges of what the coaching staff and myself are going to expect out of him,” Kellogg said.
Kellogg will also look for his freshmen to improve drastically over the summer between having time off and registering plenty of experience during the 2009-10 season. He believes they all finished on a positive note, but need to keep working during the offseason in order make UMass more competitive in the A-10.
“They had a lot of ups-and-downs throughout the year, which I think a lot of freshmen do, but they were also afforded an opportunity, that a lot of freshmen are not, [and that] is that they were able to play and work through some kinks,” Kellogg said.
By the end of the year, Terrell Vinson and Freddie Riley worked their way into the starting lineup, while Javorn Farrell’s work ethic turned him into a defensive force, and will likely earn him a larger role with the Minutemen next year.
UM to play more at home
If many of the NCAA tournament teams look familiar, it’s probably because they played UMass at some point this season. The good news for the Minutemen is that many of those teams will be visiting the Mullins Center next year.
UMass made several home-and-home deals so that competitive teams will play in Amherst next year when Kellogg’s squad has another year of experience.
Seton Hall, Central Florida, Boston College and Davidson are all supposed to be on the schedule next year as home games. The Minutemen are also going to participate in Springfield’s Hall of Fame Tip-Off Classic, which will be similar to the Legends’ Classic.
Despite some lopsided losses to nationally-ranked teams, Kellogg said he will continue to try to put his team on television as much as possible, which he knows means playing some competitive teams.
One of those teams, however, will not be Kentucky. Despite agreeing to a game at TD Garden with his predecessor, John Calipari, before he left Memphis, Kellogg said there is no plan to play the Wildcats anytime soon.
“Now is not really the time for us to play against them,” Kellogg said. “It’s something we’ll probably visit down the line when it’s beneficial for both programs.”
He pointed to how much money the Wildcats make playing at home as one of the reasons why UK probably wouldn’t agree to a game on a neutral court.
Kellogg does plan on having the Minutemen return to the Garden once next season, but he hasn’t found a team to play yet because the NCAA tournament is still going on.
He also wants to play either Boston University or Northeastern in order to draw some more UMass fans from Boston. Either way, Kellogg expects to have another competitive schedule.
Adam Miller can be reached at [email protected].
