It was a revival of all sorts for Trent Buttrick in the second half of the Massachusetts men’s basketball teams 77-60 win over the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). He finished the contest tied for the game-high in points with 16.

Buttrick was on fire in the second half and came back revitalized after a poor first half outing. The Penn State transfer quickly found his groove as the second half went on and was feeding off the energy of the crowd. 

“To me [Buttrick’s bounce back in the second half] started on the defensive end of the floor,” UMass (1-0) head coach Matt McCall said. “I really challenged Trent [Buttrick] at halftime and said ‘I’m playing the guys in the second half that’ll give the best effort’ because I thought we had high levels effort at times in the first half…the game was going too fast and we had to settle in. That’s the first time our guys have seen fans in the stands in a long time.”

The first game jitters were real for Buttrick in the first half, especially given the fact that for the rest of the players on the UMass squad who were on the team in the 2019-2020 campaign, it had been 612 days since they played in front of fans.

Buttrick went 0-for-4 in the first half from the field along with three rebounds. All four of his shots taken in the first half were from beyond the arc and comparatively to the rest of the team no one took more than two attempts from deep. He couldn’t find his rhythm offensively and was struggling to get spacing on the floor against UMBC (0-1).

Buttrick began to settle into the game when he first got subbed in, midway through the second half and was soon finding success down low in the post and outside on the perimeter. The forward went on a tear offensively in the middle of the second half and scored 13 straight points. In that stretch he managed to shoot 3-of-4 from deep. 

“I just kind of let [the game] come to me,” Buttrick said. “I just let [everything] come to me, coach [McCall] pulled me in at half and just said ‘let it come to you and play within the offense’ and then it started falling for me.”

Buttrick’s bounce back in the second half gave a huge amount of momentum to the Minutemen down the stretch who began to thrive off the crowd that was getting into the performance that he was putting on.

“I thought [Buttrick’s] effort was the reason he made shots in the second half,” McCall said emphatically. “We woke him up and he responded, and he started playing physical. He made some great defensive plays, had some deflections on pick-and-roll coverages, he challenged on post defense and now he was into the game.”

Outside of the offensive production that Buttrick provided for the Minutemen out on the court, he was a tenacious defender down low in the post in the second half. The Retrievers were attacking the glass with ease in the first half and getting uncontested looks down low in the paint. Buttrick came out in the second half determined to put those easy baskets to a halt. He finished with one block along with five steals on the night, just under half of the team total of 11 steals.

Buttrick will be credited with the offensive numbers he put up against UMBC in the opening night win, but his defense down the stretch provided for a lot of smooth transition baskets down the stretch of the second half.

The Minutemen now head on the road for another non-conference matchup at Yale. Tipoff is set for 8 p.m. 

Frederick Hanna III can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @FrederickHIII.