The Massachusetts men’s basketball team has itself a bonafide superstar in center Tre Mitchell. UMass (2-3, 1-1 Atlantic 10) has only experienced victory this season when Mitchell is able to score over 30 points.
In the season opener, Mitchell scored 31 points in a convincing win over Northeastern, looking as if he is only building on the hype of last year. He also scored a career-high 37 in a great road win against La Salle.
In the three losses, Mitchell has scored 10, 12 and 23 points, the 23 coming in a double overtime game in which George Mason’s two starting big men fouled out.
When watching the way teams are scheming against the Minutemen it feels less like Mitchell isn’t who we thought he was and more like UMass has yet to find a way to break the zone of opposing defenses.
“We got to add something in zone offense wise,” said UMass coach Matt McCall. “When [Mitchell] does get doubled down there and he fires it out, we got to make open shots.”
Mitchell hasn’t gotten an ideal amount of perimeter support when he’s doubled in the post, as players other than Mitchell for the Minutemen are shooting 39.5 percent from the field and 32.5 percent from beyond the arc.
In the two wins for UMass this season Mitchell has 31 combined first half points while only combining for 13 during the first half in the three losses.
“Those games I just struggled to get myself going,” Mitchell said about the losses. “I don’t think I prepared myself mentally the proper way coming out the gate, so I just didn’t have the right mindset from tip-off.”
Mitchell has constantly been double-teamed throughout the first five games of the year, leaving him to seldom find clean looks for an open shot. In the three losses, Mitchell has at times faded into the background from a scoring perspective, not getting nearly as many field goal attempts as a player of that caliber should.
“Do we need to continue to find ways to get [Mitchell] the ball? No question,” McCall said.
Mitchell is averaging 17.5 field goal attempts per game in wins, while averaging just over 10 attempts in losses.
Success for UMass along with Mitchell boils down to being able to find ways to break the zone defense, along with execution on open opportunities while Mitchell is double-teamed.
Mitchell can average in the high 20’s per game if opportunities were to come more often for the star. It’s just a matter of being able to find those looks.
Joey Aliberti can be reached via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JosephAliberti1
