The Massachusetts men’s basketball team controlled much of their season opener, defeating New Hampshire 103-74. While the quality of the opponent was below what UMass (1-0) will see in the A-10 this season, Monday still represented an early sign of how the Minutemen will play against every school on its 2024-25 schedule.
After 40 minutes of play, the biggest takeaway is unremarkable: this year’s UMass team plays like your typical Frank Martin team. Seven of the 13 players who suited up on Monday played their first game in a Minutemen uniform, but the identity of the team looks like it will largely remain the same.
“[This is] a fun group of guys,” Martin said. “We’re deep, we’re aggressive, we play fast. That’s how they play every day. We got to just continue to grow and clean up some defensive mistakes.”
That’s not to say that this year’s team plays exactly like last year’s edition. In 2023-24, UMass ranked 22nd in the nation allowing opponents to shoot just 52.7 percent at the rim. That team’s rim defense was anchored by Matt Cross and Josh Cohen, two bigs who always seemed to be in the right positions at the right time.
In their opener, the Minutemen improved on last year’s number by holding the Wildcats (0-1) to just 48 percent shooting (16-of-33) at the rim. The stat looked similar to last season, but where Cross and Cohen relied on better positioning, new bigs Shahid Muhammad and Malek Abdelgowad thrive on verticality.
Against New Hampshire, UMass had more blocks (eight) than they had in any game in all of last season. All but one of those swats came from Muhammad and Abdelgowad, with Muhammad specifically racking up five. There weren’t as many good contests as were typical from Martin’s past frontcourts; instead, defenders skied in off of help defense and other spots on the court to emphatically deny Wildcat shots. That method of rim defense might not be as pleasing for Martin, but the results worked out just fine on Monday.
The Minutemen’s perimeter defense fell much more in line with past Martin rosters. The former South Carolina coach has had his teams finish top 100 nationally in turnover rate in 10 of the past 11 seasons, and forcing 15 cough-ups from New Hampshire puts his team on a good track to continue that trend. The length of UMass was disruptive all night, and with pressure consistently in the face of Wildcat guards, the Minutemen got numerous easy baskets off of their 13 steals.
“Us being up in denial in the lanes, everybody helping out…that just speeds a team up,” guard Rahsool Diggins said. “When a team is sped up, they get to make fast decisions and usually quick decisions are not smart decisions, so that [leads] us to the other end of the floor.”
An unanticipated leader in creating havoc was Arizona State transfer Akil Watson, who co-led UMass with four steals alongside Jaylen Curry. The sophomore wing had a sequence with back-to-back steals that led to breakaway points midway through the first half. It was widely assumed that Watson would be a project heading into this season, but if he keeps delivering on the defensive end, he’ll see valuable minutes sooner rather than later.
On offense, despite losing two frontcourt stars, the Minutemen still did the bulk of their offensive work in the paint. Bigs like Abdelgowad and Daniel Hankins-Sanford benefited off of good feeds and uncontested looks inside. Martin has brought up playing an inside-out offense this year, though, and Monday’s “out” was largely one-dimensional.
After finishing 304th nationally with 31.3 percent shooting from deep a season ago, Monday’s output from behind the arc would have been much worse if not for Diggins. The senior tied a program record with eight made threes, but the other 12 players on the roster combined to go just 4-of-19 (21 percent). Diggins won’t be able to single-handedly shoot UMass into games all season, and as has become common under Martin, one or multiple players stepping up from deep could do wonders for the ceiling of this Minutemen roster.
“We got a bunch of guys that shoot it,” Martin said. “Akil [Watson] can shoot the basketball…Nate [Guerengomba] can shoot the basketball…[Curry’s] shooting will get better as people have to start guarding our centers and [Diggins] and all that stuff, it’ll give him opportunities…I’ve never been worried about that.”
We’ll see if these early signs hold in UMass’ next game against West Virginia on Friday, Nov. 8. Tipoff for that game will be at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN+.
Dean Wendel can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @DeanWende1.
