The Massachusetts basketball team lost to West Virginia 75-69 in its first road matchup of the season on Friday. Despite what the final score shows, this was a game of two different halves for UMass (1-1), as a poor first half performance created a deficit that was too steep to climb out of against the Mountaineers (2-0).
With a combination of ineffective shooting and 12 turnovers, the Minutemen fell behind by 17 to West Virginia at halftime. UMass led in the first few minutes, but the Mountaineers retook the lead and held it for the remainder of the contest.
“Unfortunately, we played really bad offensively in the first half and the last thing you [want to] do on the road is dig yourself a hole because it’s really hard to get out of it,” head coach Frank Martin said. “As the game went on, we played better and that’s the journey with this team. That’s why we’re playing games like this, to get us ready for the Atlantic 10.”
Top guard Rahsool Diggins was held scoreless for the first 15 minutes of action, as West Virginia’s defense locked down the Minutemen’s top scorer. The senior ignited in the second half, though, scoring 17 points to end the night with 19 total.
Regardless of UMass’ 45-28 halftime deficit, the team did not go down without a fight. The trio of Diggins, Daniel Rivera and Daniel Hankins-Sanford found success after halftime and were all integral parts of a comeback attempt against a Big 12 opponent.
Rivera scored 14 points on 5-of-7 shooting to go with nine rebounds, two blocks and two steals. Hankins-Sanford had his first double-double of the season, finishing with 13 points on 6-of-9 shooting, 11 rebounds and two steals. Diggins’ 19 points came off of 5-of-14 shooting with four made three-pointers.
To start the second half, Diggins made back-to-back threes that created a huge swing in momentum that the Minutemen continued to build on. UMass pieced together a string of scoring plays with 14 minutes left in regulation, making 5-of-6 field goals to cut the Mountaineers lead to nine. While the offense started to pick up, so did the Minutemen’s defense as West Virginia was held without a field goal for over six minutes. Even this effort wasn’t enough to repair the damage from the first half.
Part of that damage came from UMass shooting under 35 percent from the field in the first half. Jaylen Curry was the only productive shooter for the Minutemen during the first 20 minutes, but he couldn’t build on his 13 points afterward. The sophomore shot 5-of-8 in the first half but went 0-of-7 in the second half.
“[Curry] saw that we were struggling on offense and then he went and scored some… he’s trying to get us into the things that we call, and he’s got the ability to shoot and score,” Martin said.
“He ran our team and he got the ball where it needed to go, and then offensively we did a better job cutting and moving which opened up [Diggins], and then he finally made some shots.”
Despite both scoring in double-figures, neither Curry nor Diggins could get hot at the same time on offense as the Mountaineers had strong perimeter defense to lock down the two guards in each of the halves.
Both teams had four players score 10 points or more. For West Virginia, Tucker DeVries scored a team-high 17 points with eight rebounds and two assists. Amani Hansberry put up 16, Javon Small scored 12 and Jonathan Powell had 10 points on the night.
Looking ahead, UMass will face off against Louisiana Tech at the Icons of the Game event on Wednesday, Nov. 13 at 6 p.m. at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York. The game will be televised on MSGSN.
Samantha Sands can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @samantha_sands_.
