The Massachusetts women’s basketball team cruised to a 71-54 victory over George Washington on Wednesday. UMass (11-10, 6-4 Atlantic 10) held the lead for nearly 38 minutes of the 40-minute contest.
The Minutewomen displayed a balanced scoring affair, with all five starters scoring at least 10 points. Stefanie Kulesza led the team in scoring with 17. Freshman guard Yahmani McKayle also made her return to the starting lineup, replacing Momo LaClair.
“It doesn’t matter to me who it is, I just like the fact that we have multiple people in double figures,” head coach Mike Leflar said. “I thought that group that started got us off to a great start in the first quarter and third quarter.”
After the Revolutionaries (8-12, 1-8 A-10) drained both of their opening attempts from downtown, UMass embarked on a 17-2 run and never came close to giving up the lead again. Megan Olbrys assisted Kulesza during the surge and finished with 16 points on a perfect 6-for-6 from the free throw line. Olbrys also added to her double-double tally on the season with her 10 rebounds.
The Minutewomen excelled in the turnover category on both sides of the ball. They gave the ball away just eight times and forced George Washington to turn it over on 18 occasions through effective pressing. UMass directly capitalized on the opportunities by scoring 20 points off turnovers.
“We’ve been pressing quite a bit this year, we’ve mixed up some presses,” Leflar said. “Honestly there’s times where we just want to defend for less time in the half-court and I think our full-court defense allows us to do that. And then, I think there are teams that we can really turn over and we were able to do that to [George Washington].”
The bench scored just six total points thanks to the even scoring across the five starters. Chinenye Odenigbo and Allie Palmieri both scraped across the double-digit mark with 10 points apiece. McKayle added 12 in her new role after spending all of conference play up to this point as the Minutewomen’s sixth man. LaClair’s four and Jess Ross’ two served as the only bench points.
UMass made just four 3-pointers on the night and still managed a solid scoring total of 71 points. It relied on 36 points in the paint and a hefty 17 offensive rebounds to lead the way. The Minutewomen also shot 13-for-15 as a team from the charity stripe.
“I just want us to be balanced inside-out,” Leflar said. “As long as we’re getting good shots each possession and we’re taking the right shots more often than not, I’m happy. Sometimes that’s a three, other times that’s a layup, or a paint touch, or a post touch. I think we just have to keep working on maximizing that and [on Wednesday], we did that.”
Kulesza was the most consistent player for UMass throughout the game. She used her speed to drive towards the rim and finish through contact. Additionally, she grabbed eight boards, which was second-most behind Olbrys.
“Me and [Olbrys] really take pride in our rebounding every single game and it’s one of the focuses that we talk about every single day,” Kulesza said. “To have four people crashing and getting rebounds makes it that much tougher for the other team to get boards or get the ball and go.”
UMass will be back in action on Sunday, Feb. 2 to rematch La Salle on the road. In the home matchup with the Explorers on Jan. 15, the Minutewomen won 82-66. They will look to recreate the result in a 2 p.m. tipoff that can be streamed live on ESPN+.
“First day of classes [Thursday], we have the day off and then when we get back at it Friday afternoon we’ll take a look at La Salle with the team,” Leflar said. “We’ll start implementing the game plan and make a couple of adjustments from the first game. We have a group that, I think, expects that because that’s our routine and they’ve bought into that and seen success.”
Cameron Pellegrino can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @cam_pellegrino.