Carl Pierre was the one constant piece to the offense for the Massachusetts men’s basketball team in its loss to Bryant on Monday.
Pierre accounted for nearly half the made three’s in the game for UMass (2-2, 1-0 Atlantic 10) but it wasn’t enough to overcome a relentless Bryant (7-2, 3-1 Northeast Conference) that pulled out a 93-88 victory. The senior guard went off for 23 points on 6-of-13 shooting from the field and 4-of-9 from deep.
“I thought Carl obviously shot the ball well from the 3-point line,” said head coach Matt McCall. “He was good at the foul line as well, he drew five fouls in the game and made some really good effort plays. Came up with some loose balls and that’s what he does. He shot the ball well, but we were 9-of-34 from the 3-point line and if we are going to bomb up that many shots we need to find other guys to put the ball in the basket.”
The Minutemen struggled to get going early but a bright spot soon emerged, and the veteran Pierre began to knock shots down.
The senior finished with 12 points in the first half, a half where he saw his team down by eight and struggling to get into any rhythm. Pierre had a plus/minus of minus-eight out on the court, which was the third highest for any UMass player in the first half.
Pierre also went 5-of-5 from the free throw line in the opening half and managed to have a steal that saw a little shift in the momentum. With 2.44 points per minute, Pierre was trailing just behind Javohn Garcia in that category for the game.
“I felt pretty good shooting the ball,” Pierre said. “Can’t say much else other than that. Disappointed in the way the game came out.”
It seemed to be that the Minutemen kept trying to claw their way back into the game in the second half, but lackluster defense and poor execution shooting the ball shot them down.
Pierre continued his success from the first half and emulated that into an 11-point performance to close out the second half. He shot 3-of-6 from beyond the arc and salvaged any hopes of keeping UMass in the game with his shooting and driving to the rim drawing contact.
After shooting 2-of-7 from three in the first game of the season against Northeastern and following that up with no 3-point attempts in the away finale, Pierre has knocked down four threes in back-to-back games. The senior went 4-of-12 in a dominant team performance against La Salle for their first conference win of the season and followed suit with another four 3-pointers made Monday against the Bulldogs.
As the Minutemen were down nine with 6:04 left in the second half, Pierre drew contact driving to the basket and knocked down both free throws to cut the lead down to seven. This sparked some momentum in the offense of UMass as Bryant’s lead was then cut down to three in a span of a minute, but quickly the Bulldogs pulled ahead again.
“For me personally I kind of have fun doing that [clawing back into leads],” Pierre said. “When you get into games like that you play like you have nothing to lose and you’re just playing to win. It does make the game more difficult for sure.”
UMass is taking on George Mason in Amherst on December 30th to restart their campaign in conference play. Tipoff is still to be announced.
Frederick Hanna can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @FrederickHIII
