After a string of tough results, the Massachusetts men’s basketball team has its first winning streak of the season thanks to Sunday’s 80-68 win over NJIT. The Minutemen (3-5) never trailed and held a double-digit lead for most of the contest’s forty minutes.
“We were in a two-and-a-half week [period where] we weren’t in the right space,” head coach Frank Martin said. “We prepared really well yesterday and that was a representation–the first half–of who our team was for two months and yesterday’s preparation.”
Through 20 minutes, the margin of victory looked like it would be much more than its eventual 12. UMass put forth one of its best halves of the season, stifling the Highlanders (1-8) on defense and converting on high-percentage looks when it had the ball in its hands. Flaws like perimeter shooting were still present, but against the No. 351 team on KenPom, the Minutemen’s spirited performance led to a sizable 17-point halftime lead.
That lead was slowly whittled down as NJIT found a rhythm on offense to open the second half. Coming out of the break, the Highlanders made six of their first eight shots as good looks consistently came through head coach Grant Billmeier’s offense. NJIT’s leading scorer Tariq Francis was held in check early, but a couple of defensive lapses allowed the sophomore to find his shot.
With the team leaking oil, as Martin put it, it was scoring on the interior that helped UMass put away the game for good. The team shot 27-of-43 (63 percent) from inside the arc, relying on players like Daniel Rivera and Shahid Muhammad to respond to made baskets by the Highlanders. The game-sealing stretch came with eight minutes to play, as the Minutemen scored seven straight points off dunks, layups and opportunities at the line that were created down low.
After Rivera’s 16 points and Muhammad’s 10, the other UMass player to score in double digits was sophomore guard Marqui Worthy, who finished with a career-high 12 points on 5-of-9 shooting. The Anaheim, CA native suffered from a rocky start to his sophomore campaign, but on Sunday, he looked much more confident in creating shots for himself and others. One of Worthy’s best plays in a Minutemen uniform came late in the first, as the sophomore threaded a bounce pass directly into Tarique Foster’s hands for a layup.
“I’m really happy for [Worthy],” Martin said. “[Worthy] is a wonderful teammate and works his tail off and he’s a good player. He’s been trying to find confidence in college basketball. I was really happy for him today. He played like the guy that we recruited.”
With a first-half hand injury forcing Daniel Hankins-Sanford out of the game, Muhammad saw an uptick in minutes compared to his previous two outings. The junior made the most of that playing time, finishing with five rebounds, four blocks and an emphatic putback dunk as part of his ten-point outing. Muhammad now averages 2.9 blocks a game, good for sixth in the nation.
“Usually when I see somebody go up, I usually wait till the ball is in the air before I jump,” Muhammad said on his blocking prowess. “I don’t know, it’s natural.”
UMass’ interior scoring was a bright spot for the team, but it came out of necessity after another poor shooting performance from deep. The Minutemen went 3-of-17 (18 percent) on their three-point attempts, representing a little over a quarter of the team’s total field goal tries. A rare bright spot of that performance was Rahsool Diggins’ first made three in 28 tries, breaking a slump that extended back to Nov. 16.
The Highlanders entered Sunday with a bottom-10 offense nationally per KenPom, and it showed against UMass. The team shot 34.5 percent from the floor against the Minutemen with nine of its 20 made baskets coming via Francis. Past the sophomore, NJIT players struggled with UMass’ length inside and resorted to tough shots that rarely went through the net. Guard Sebastian Robinson was the only other Highlander to score in double figures with 14 points.
The Minutemen will continue their December homestand on Wednesday, Dec. 4 with a matchup against Central Connecticut State. That game will tip off at 7 p.m. on ESPN+.
Dean Wendel can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @DeanWende1.
