It may have taken four, long and sometimes grueling seasons, but the Massachusetts men’s basketball team and coach Derek Kellogg can finally call themselves 20-game winners.
Jesse Morgan led all scorers with 25 points on a perfect 9-for-9 shooting – including 6-for-6 from 3-point range – and Sean Carter recorded a career-high 22 points in his last regular season game as a Minuteman to help UMass defeat Rhode Island, 89-83, on Senior Day at the Mullins Center on Saturday.
The Minutemen (20-10, 9-7 Atlantic 10) finished the regular season in a four-way tie for fifth place in the conference with Dayton, La Salle and Saint Joseph’s. But because of tiebreaking rules, they will be a No. 8 seed in the A-10 tournament, which starts on Tuesday night when they host Duquesne at the Mullins Center.
Coming off of a road trip that saw UMass lose tough games to Dayton and Temple, Kellogg was proud of how his team responded, although he wasn’t afraid to admit some of his concerns.
“That was a fun game. I wish we had a played a little better defense and I thought we got 3 happy,” said Kellogg, whose team went 14-for-30 from long range. “We need to tighten up our defense, but I thought coming off the Temple game, our guys at least competed and had a little fire in their belly and it was good to see.”
A frantic, fast-paced, back-and-forth first half ended with the Minutemen on top of the Rams, 44-43, at halftime, but neither team was ready to quit in an equally competitive second half.
It looked as if UMass would seize control early in the second half. Morgan drilled three 3-pointers in the first three minutes of the half to put the Minutemen on top, 55-48, with 17 minutes, 12 seconds to go.
He wasn’t done, either. Morgan then connected with Carter for an alley-oop slam and minutes later canned another 3-pointer to cap an 18-6 UMass run that gave it its largest lead of the game to that point at 62-51.
“I was just feeling good tonight, my teammates did a good job of finding me,” said Morgan. “To play like that or to shoot like that is always a good feeling, to put your team in the best position to win.”
“I tell the guys if you’re a worker, it pays dividends, and a lot of times you’ll see guys that are in the gym working make shots,” said Kellogg. “And that rang true for [Morgan] today with 25 points and he got into a little bit of a zone where he was just raining 3s on them.”
The Rams (7-24, 4-12 A-10) fought back, however. Eliminated from the postseason picture, they had nothing to gain with a win, but it hardly showed as they carried a never-say-die mentality throughout the game.
Trailing by 11 after the Minutemen’s initial run, URI came back with a run of its own as it slowly but surely sliced into the UMass lead. After a 15-4 run, the game was knotted at 66 with 9:33 remaining after a made free throw from senior Orion Outerbridge, who led the Rams with 24 points in his final collegiate game.
“I knew Rhode Island was going to try to do what we’ve done to them a couple of times in my tenure, which is to spoil the plans of the Minutemen,” said Kellogg. “And they came out and played well. Outerbridge was playing with nothing to lose and I thought their young kids played tough and ready to go.”
URI took the lead with 6:48 left to go after another Outerbridge free throw, but the Minutemen responded with the death blow, a 14-0 run that put them up 85-72 with three minutes left and ultimately sealed the victory.
Chaz Williams scored only three points in the first half, but was instrumental in the final minutes. He finished with 19 points, nine assists, six rebounds and five steals.
“He had three [points] for so long and I kept looking at the board [and saying] is this guy going to score?” said Kellogg. “So expectations start [rising] and you expect guys to play better all of the time and then fans expect you to win every game, and that’s what goes when you’re playing well, so we just have to continue to do that.”
UMass will now turn its attention to the Dukes (16-14, 7-9 A-10), who beat the Minutemen earlier this season, 80-69, in Pittsburgh on Jan. 18.
If UMass wins on Tuesday, then it will advance to Atlantic City, N.J. for a second round game on Friday where it would have a rematch against the tournament’s No. 1 seed Temple.
Stephen Hewitt can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @MDC_Hewitt.
