Safe to say, Tuesday night’s first half against Dartmouth was the Massachusetts men’s basketball team’s ugliest half of the season.

The Big Green (4-10) ranked 310 of 363 Division I teams according to KenPom, and played without their top four scorers. UMass (9-3) found itself down double digits, eventually losing 35-28 at halftime before winning 68-57.

With the Minutemen’s non-conference slate wrapped up, let’s dig in to some of the bigger issues that UMass recently faced heading into conference play on New Year’s Eve against St. Bonaventure.

Point guard 

Rahsool Diggins and Keon Thompson shared the burden at point guard with Noah Fernandes injured, and it hasn’t gone great. Thompson provided 13 and 11 points in games against Albany and UMass Lowell, but since then neither added much scoring.

In the 62-44 loss to North Texas Saturday, Diggins and Thompson combined for zero points compared to Mean Green point guard Tylor Perry’s 23. It got worse against Dartmouth, as Minutemen coach Frank Martin benched Diggins five minutes into the second half and didn’t play Thompson at all in the final 20. T.J. Weeks played the entire second half, taking on the point guard role and thriving with 19 points and five assists.

Martin couldn’t allow his team to go forward with unreliable point guard play, which prompted him to give Weeks some practice at the one on Monday.

“Since Noah went down, I have not been happy with our point guard play,” Martin said.

Fernandes hurt his ankle on Dec. 2 against Harvard, UMass’ next game is 11 days away. Four weeks seems like enough time for recovery, but the severity of the ankle sprain isn’t known, though he wasn’t wearing a walking boot on the bench Tuesday.

Paint presence

Over the past few games, both Isaac Kante and Wildens Leveque haven’t made a difference down low. Neither scored above six in the past three games, granted Leveque dealt with sickness since warmups of the North Texas game, but not enough of an excuse for a three-game stretch from both players.

“Isaac has got to play with more energy man,” Martin said. “Isaac’s a man. He’s a career [seven] rebound a game guy, he’s averaging three rebounds a game for us. We need him to play with more energy. He did that early in the year for us, and for whatever reason he’s not doing that right now.”

Martin acknowledged Kante’s uptick in energy in the second half, where he finished with six points, three rebounds and two blocks in 16 minutes. Martin brings up a valid point of Kante’s rebounding, which didn’t dip under 7.5 over the past three seasons. Of course higher competition level and around 12 less minutes a game dictates that, but not to this extent.

Perimeter shooting

Weeks saved the Minutemen from another awful performance from beyond the arc against the Big Green, hitting 5-of-8 attempts. UMass was still 27 percent (7-of-26) from the arc, its fifth straight game under 40 percent.

This is another area of the Minutemen’s offense that takes a big hit without Fernandes, who shoots 43.5 percent on threes this season. Not only does he make threes, but he takes pressure off Weeks, R.J. Luis, Dyondre Dominguez and Matt Cross.

In the first six games of the season, UMass shot 40.4 percent on 3-pointers, a top-20 mark in the country. In the most recent six, that’s gone to 26.5 percent, including an 0-for-10 output against North Texas. The latter percentage would rank them 352nd in the nation.

Safe to say the Minutemen need Noah Fernandes.

“Ever since we lost Noah, we’ve lost our offensive identity a little bit,” Martin said.

Even with these flaws among other things, UMass’ 9-3 record is tied for second best in the Atlantic 10. Fernandes helps fix two of these three problems, but won’t completely solve either. Fernandes averages 28 minutes a game, and Martin needs a reliable back up to ease the burden when Fernandes rests.

Joey Aliberti can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @JosephAliberti1.