In recent weeks, it is easy to say that Rahsool Diggins has been the star of the Massachusetts men’s basketball team. Averaging 17.5 points a game, leading UMass (10-13, 5-5 Atlantic 10) to huge victories against conference opponents and receiving a long list of accolades over the past month, Diggins has been the Minutemen’s top player.
After 11 straight games of scoring in double figures, Diggins had an off-night against Saint Louis with only five points, but his teammates proved for most of the game that they could battle without their top player.
However, on a night like Tuesday where UMass had the victory in its hands, critical late-game mistakes cost the team a win. A terrible final minute plagued a great 39 minutes of basketball against one of the top teams in the A-10, which sealed the Minutemen’s fate for defeat.
Throughout most of the game, Jaylen Curry, Daniel Hankins-Sanford, Jayden Ndjigue and Daniel Rivera all picked up Diggins’ slack. The group helped lead UMass out of a 10-point deficit to even gain its own 10-point lead with six minutes left in the game.
Curry ran the offense well and showed off his scoring abilities, stepping up in Diggins’ wake to lead the team with 16 points. The big issue for the sophomore came at the charity stripe, as he went 1-of-6 including a missed shot while up three with 37 seconds left in the game.
If made, the Minutemen likely survive the game with the win. With the game on the line, any coach would be inclined to put the ball in the hands of their top scorer. But this season, Curry has shot 67.4 percent from the line and when your point guard has struggled at making free throws, it makes it exceptionally harder to win those close games, like we saw on Tuesday night.
“You can’t go to the line up three and miss the free throw,” head coach Frank Martin said. “If you want to win the game, you just can’t. That’s a deflating play in that moment.”
Despite the missed free throw, it would not be fair to call out Curry’s missed shot and hold that as the sole blame for the loss. A lot else happened in that final minute that led up to the missed free throw and Isaiah Swope’s game-winning 3-pointer that contributed to why UMass lost the game.
Daniel Rivera had a strong performance with another double-double added to his time spent with the Minutemen. With 14 points and 14 rebounds, including nine offensive boards, the senior was key in producing second-chance opportunities and keeping up with the fast pace of the game.
But it is that same fast pace that Rivera got too caught up in, which led to a poor decision in crunch time. With 49 seconds to go and UMass ahead by five, Rivera inbounded the ball to Curry, who passed it back to him. Instead of holding onto the ball, Rivera dribbled into the paint and left his feet to make a poor pass. The ball was intercepted by a Billikens (14-9, 7-3 A-10) player, who drove down the floor and passed to Swope for a layup. That play snowballed into a 7-0 Saint Louis run, into the Curry miss and into the missed final shot attempt by Diggins as time expired.
Hankins-Sanford and Ndjigue were also major factors throughout the game. They each were making their shots, rushing to the glass for rebounds and making hustle plays on defense. However, Hankins-Sanford’s hustle didn’t come up with a loose ball in the final minute, while Ndjigue missed crucial shots that could have turned the loss into a win.
This was a tough loss across the board for the Minutemen. They had every chance to pull out the win and continue to move up in the A-10 standings while players outside of Diggins showed they could step up and play with confidence. A small group of them did step up, but it wasn’t enough.
Given how other A-10 games go, UMass can not afford to lose another game this way. The battle in the standings is close and the Minutemen are now the six seed with the loss.
Going forward, if Diggins falls into a similar situation like he did on Tuesday, UMass will need a little more out of its players to show that they can battle to win in games like this against opponents in the future.
Samantha Sands can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @samantha_sands_.