As the Massachusetts men’s basketball team gets deeper and deeper into conference play, three to four players have emerged as key contributors. Rahsool Diggins, Daniel Rivera and Jaylen Curry have all been double-figure scorers, while Marqui Worthy has picked up the pace since the calendar flipped to 2025.
That group has mostly been steady and reliable for the Minutemen (8-11, 3-3 Atlantic 10) , and their performances have led to some wins and some losses. A key to more wins and fewer losses is for others outside of that main unit to start stepping up, and on Sunday, it was Jayden Ndjigue who handed his team 27 minutes of hard-nosed play.
“[Jayden] played with a free mind today,” head coach Frank Martin said. “He just prepared and acted on the moment. His energy–when he plays with that aggression defensively, on the ball, off the ball, it allows him to then play [aggressive] offensively.”
The final statline for the sophomore starts off unimposing: nine points. Four UMass players scored more than Ndjigue, but his baskets came in both crucial and impressive moments.
When La Salle was surging with under seven minutes to play, Ndjigue was standing in the corner on a Minutemen possession, seemingly out of the play. That positioning left the Explorers (10-8, 2-3 A-10) sagging off him, leaving the entire left side of the court open for him to crash the glass. After a Curry missed jumper, that’s exactly what he did, snagging an offensive rebound before putting the ball back up to kickstart a 21-2 game-ending run.
Two of his other three made baskets were also gritty scores. Once in each half, Ndjigue gathered the ball in the low post before putting up a bank shot over a bigger defender. Their height was nothing to worry about, as both times, the ball went over the defender’s outstretched arms, off the glass and into the net.
Regardless, the point total may not look stellar, but Ndjigue doesn’t need to score 15 points a night to make a major impact on a game. That’s never been his forte as a basketball player.
“When I played basketball at a younger age, I wasn’t really good at handling the ball or shooting,” Ndjigue said. “In order to feel like a part of the game, I kind of just learned how to dive on the floor [and] make hustle plays and I guess it’s just kind of stuck with me [until] now.”
That playstyle appears a few columns over in the box score, where things look more impressive: 13 rebounds. That mark led the team, with Ndjigue scratching and clawing his way to boards on both ends. In the first half, with the game still in balance, he grabbed multiple big rebounds that prevented La Salle from extending offensive possessions.
A few more columns to the right, and another stat pops out: five blocks. This was both a game-high and a career-high for Ndjigue, who was continuously altering shots around the rim. His old career-high–three–was tied on a huge spike off the backboard as Jahlil White drove to the basket. Eight seconds later, he reached up with one hand and snatched an Explorers pass: the athletic play looked more like a steal but was ruled his fourth block.
At the very end of the box score, one final stat is displayed: plus-minus. Coaches can be critical of the stat’s value, and Martin is no exception, but the +35 mark that Ndjigue put up can’t be ignored. With this stat, the plays that aren’t directly correlated to the box score appear.
One of those plays was singled out by Martin as a great one in the postgame press conference. Early in the second half, Ndjigue was out of dribbles, but still had the ball in the high post. La Salle had made a switch earlier in the possession and as a result, Ndjigue had a big man on him while Daniel Hankins-Sanford was in the low post on a smaller defender. After pivoting, Ndjigue made a perfect entry pass to where only Hankins-Sanford could get it, and that led to two points in a possession that would often end in zero.
After averaging 25 minutes a night as a freshman, the numbers show that Ndjigue’s role has decreased ever so slightly. Since December, though, playing time has steadily increased for the sophomore, and over the past few games, he’s again playing the 25-30 minutes a night that he was accustomed to last season.
In that time, not all of his performances have been great. A 17-point, eight-rebound game against UMass Lowell was followed by a string of low-output nights. If the sophomore can be consistent with his grit and pair that with the occasional basket, he can raise the ceiling of this UMass roster as another key piece.
“Jayden has to free his mind to play with aggression,” Martin said. “That’s what makes him a good player…he just has to go, just go, free your mind and play.”
Dean Wendel can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @DeanWende1.