Over the past two games the Massachusetts women’s basketball team has had trouble finding the range from 3-point land. UMass’ (22-6, 10-4 Atlantic 10) last game against Davidson saw the Minutewomen go ice cold from behind the arc as they shot 2-18 from downtown on Sunday.
Wednesday’s game against Virginia Commonwealth (14-9, 9-4 A-10) saw UMass have another poor shooting game from the 3-point line, but the Minutewomen were able to power through a rough shooting performance and take home the win.
Sydney Taylor took a game high 10 shots from behind the line but made only three of them. One of her 3-pointers happened to be one of the biggest buckets of the game as right before the third quarter buzzer sounded Taylor launched a high arcing shot that caught nothing but nylon.
Outside of Taylor, the rest of the Minutewomen went 1-for-8 from downtown with Sam Breen being the only other UMass player with a made 3- pointer.
“[Breen] had a couple [looks], Ber’Nyah [Mayo] had couple [looks], I’m not overly concerned… it’s just ebbs and flows of the game,” UMass head coach Tory Verdi said. “[Breen] had a lot of good looks and I told her to just keep shooting because it will go in eventually.”
With the 3-point shot not falling, UMass turned to the midrange game.
In the midst of a two-minute scoring drought during the second quarter Mayo was able to get her midrange jumper going. With 2:37 to go in the quarter Mayo buried a 15-foot jumper to break the drought.
Then on the Minutewomen’s ensuing offensive possession Mayo came off a screen and stopped on dime at the right elbow to knock down the midrange jumper.
Late in the fourth quarter clinging to a five-point lead, the Minutewomen went to the midrange game which treated them well all night long. After Breen snagged an offensive rebound off a Taylor missed 3-pointer the Minutewomen got the ball into Destiney Philoxy’s hands and slowed down the offense.
UMass called an isolation for Philoxy which proved to be the right decision as she was able to break down the defense and get into the paint where she drew three VCU defenders. Philoxy then kicked the ball to Breen who was wide open on the baseline. Breen buried the short baseline jumper and put UMass up 62-55 with 1:42 to go.
“It was not an easy mid-range,” Breen said. “[Philoxy] goes to work obviously does her thing … hit me and maybe I was wide open, but it wasn’t easy because I swear, I thought I hit the side of the backboard, but it felt good when it went in.”
Taylor also got in on the midrange action as she hit a pair of off-balance midranges in the fourth quarter.
With this win against VCU UMass has clinched the third seed in the A-10 tournament. The Minutewomen will be on the road for their last regular season game of the year as the face off against Saint Louis. In this season’s first matchup between these two teams, UMass squeaked away with a 69-66 victory.
The Minutewomen are set to take on Saint Louis this Saturday. Tipoff is scheduled for 8 p.m.
James DiLuca can be reached at [email protected].
