Up to this point of the season, the Massachusetts men’s basketball team hasn’t had the point guard play that it’s been accustomed to seeing over the past few seasons. And while there’s still no true on-court coach for the Minutemen, Saturday’s game featured something that they’ve been lacking all season: passing.
UMass made excellent use of the pass by assisting on 22 of its 25 baskets defeating Canisius 75-58 snapping a three-game losing streak.
“We had 16 (assists) on 17 (assists) at the half so that was about as good as we could play offensively. We were really unselfish today. It’s a learning curve. I hope it continues to evolve and get better,” UMass coach Derek Kellogg said.
With Seth Berger out for the second consecutive game with a left foot injury, Kellogg went to a three-guard lineup with Trey Davis, Derrick Gordon, and Jabarie Hinds starting in the backcourt. Despite none of the three being a true pass-first point guard, all three have run the point guard position at any point of the game.
Hinds finished with a game-high six assists, while Gordon chimed in with five and Davis had four.
“Whenever we share the ball good things happen,” Gordon said. “These last couple days of practice we definitely worked a lot on moving the ball, getting open, and just sharing the ball.”
The three guards combined for 15 of the teams assists and Demetrius Dyson finished with three. Maxie Esho, Tyler Bergantino, C.J. Anderson, and walk-on Zach Turcotte each added an assist as well.
After struggling to find it’s outside shot up to this point of the season, UMass made seven 3-pointers as a team—six in the first half—assisting on all seven of them.
“It was good to see those guys playing well, sharing the ball, and making the extra pass,” Kellogg said.
The lone basket in the first half the Minutemen scored without an assist came three minutes, seven seconds into the game when Hinds scored on a crafty layup, weaving his way through defenders in the lane. Hinds finished with nine points in 25 minutes played.
Kellogg said that he was pleased with his play, and credited some of his late turnovers to the amount of minutes he played.
“It was great to see that Jabarie had six (assists). He’s a guy that we are trying to get in the lineup. He kind of hit his peak minutes there. He looked like he was getting a little tired. His decision-making changed a little bit when he got tired,” Kellogg said.
Hinds had a six of UMass’ 12 turnovers.
The other two baskets that the Minutemen didn’t assist on were put-back layups by Cady Lalanne and Esho off missed jump shots that came in the second half. Esho finished with 20 points and nine rebounds while Lalanne chimed in with 16 points and eight rebounds as well.
Andrew Cyr can be reached at [email protected], and can be followed on Twitter @Andrew_Cyr.
