Ugly? Check.
Disappointing? Check.
A poor display of basketball? Yahtzee!
Saturday’s 69-55 loss to St. Bonaventure for the Massachusetts men’s basketball team was one that it will hopefully forget by the time it leaves the Mullins Center.
The Minutemen shot 19-for-54 from the field, including 4-of-22 from behind the 3-point arc. In addition to their poor shooting numbers, they endured three separate stretches of five-plus minutes where they failed to score a single basket.
“I thought we got beat in every aspect of the game tonight,” UMass head coach Derek Kellogg said.
After picking up his third, fourth and fifth fouls over the course of 38 seconds, Tyler Bergantino – who had scored UMass’ last two baskets – fouled out with 12 minutes remaining and the Minutemen trailing 37-34.
The Bonnies went on a 17-1 run over the next 10:18.
During that stretch with UMass’ two centers – Cady Lalanne also had four fouls – on the bench, the 7-foot St. Bonaventure center Youssou Ndoye made his living attacking the interior of the Minutemen defense. In addition, he altered their shots on the defensive end and forced them to play a slow, methodical brand of basketball, one that UMass has struggled with all season. The Minutemen had just two fast-break points on the day.
“The big thing with good transition defense is running good offense, having good floor balance and then having guys sprint back like their house in on fire. I thought we did a good job in that area,” Bonnies head coach Mark Schmidt said.
The Minutemen ended the final 10:51 of the first half scoring just two field goals. One came on a Maxie Esho layup and the other on a layup from Trey Davis that was called goaltending courtesy of Ndoye. UMass scored a season-low 19 points in the first half and trailed 28-19 at halftime.
“When we were going for warmups, that’s what I told the team. We need to get three stops in a row three times in every half and we’re going to be in the game. That was tremendous for us,” Ndoye said.
The lone bright spot for the Minutemen came with 16:43 left in the game when they went on a 13-4 run highlighted by Bergantino’s back-to-back layups. It was the first glimpse of life UMass had seen all afternoon.
The only two Minutemen in double-figure scoring were Lalanne and Davis, who each finished with 12 apiece. However, Lalanne was held to just 24 minutes of playing time because of foul trouble and Davis shot 4-of-14 from the field and 1-of-9 on 3-pointers. Derrick Gordon finished with two points, and Hinds with just three.
The Bonnies received a balanced offensive attack with Marcus Posley’s 16 leading the charge. Ndoye finished with 14 points and 13 rebounds, while Jaylen Adams added 14 and Andell Cumberbatch 12.
“They want the game in the 80’s, we want to keep the game in the 60’s and 70’s. How you do that is you run good offense and you don’t turn the ball over,” Schmidt said.
“When you turn the ball over against a team as athletic as UMass it’s suicide. You can’t do that. When they have numbers they’re so long and athletic they just throw the ball to the rim and you’ve got no defense for that,” he added.
Andrew Cyr can be reached at [email protected], and can be followed on Twitter @Andrew_Cyr.
