GLEN ALLEN, Va. – The Massachusetts women’s basketball team improved by 12 wins in the 2024-25 regular season, but was played off the court in a 67-57 loss to Saint Louis in the second round of the Atlantic 10 tournament. The loss marks the fifth time that UMass (16-14, 11-7 A-10) has been knocked out by the Billikens (15-18, 7-11 A-10) in the last nine tournaments.
In the second and third quarters, the UMass offense went dry. It scored just 13 combined points across the middle two frames, and posted just three points on the scoreboard during the final seven minutes of the second quarter. Saint Louis made life hard for the Minutewomen on the defensive end, forcing 28 turnovers. Secure ball handling was a rarity on Thursday night, as the Billikens one-upped UMass in the turnovers category, making for a grand total of 57 giveaways on the night.
Yahmani McKayle was recently named A-10 Rookie of the Year, but Saint Louis had a clear game plan to take her out of the game. The freshman point guard was hounded each time she carried the ball, leading her to turn the ball over 12 times on her own. McKayle finished with 15 points, with nine of those coming from the free throw line.
“We did a lot of research, honestly,” Saint Louis head coach Rebecca Tillett said of McKayle. “We wanted to know how to disrupt her, I mean she’s freshman of the year, she’s got a great assist to turnover ratio. We have a ton of respect for her as a player. So, we looked for a couple of spots that we thought we could disrupt her … Fortunately for us, for most of the game it was pretty effective.”
The reasons for the Minutewomen’s early postseason exit are largely fundamental. They shot just 8-for-24 on layup attempts and just were not effective in finishing at the rim. Many times, they were beaten in transition and couldn’t set up the defense in time to stop the threat. On the offensive end, shots in general were not falling, as UMass shot 19-for-58 from the field. The team’s hustle only picked up when the game was too far gone to salvage.
“When Saint Louis picked up [its] defensive pressure and physicality, for whatever reason, we just kind of shied away,” head coach Mike Leflar said. “I tried to talk about that and address that at halftime. Being down six, we were right there, and again we were just hitting that gas pedal and weren’t responding. In the end, it was too little too late. ”
Things started on a positive note for the No. 7 seeded Minutewomen, who led 19-16 at the conclusion of the opening quarter. They played a fairly sound first 10 minutes, showing no signs of the looming offensive breakdown. That play style did not return until the fourth quarter, in which UMass outscored its opponents 25-18. Allie Palmieri knocked down some shots in an attempt to claw back, but the grave was already dug.
The Minutewomen’s leading scorer in Megan Olbrys struggled to find her post game against a calculated Billikens’ defensive unit. Olbrys shot 3-for-11 and was held to single-digits for just the eighth time all season, across her 30 total appearances. She was not afforded any space in the paint, and when she was, the shots refused to go down.
“[The Billikens are] great, they’re really aggressive,” Olbrys said. “They came out pretty hot, they just played a great game, that’s all I got to say.”
On the Saint Louis side of things, junior guard Brooklyn Gray took the contest into her own hands. She scored a career-high 30 points on an effective 12-for-17 shooting. Gray was drilling step-back jumpers and assisting her teammates with behind-the-back passes. It was clear that she was playing with pure confidence and UMass had absolutely no answer for her.
“My mindset was to win, and whatever my team needed me to do, I was willing to do that [Thursday],” Gray said. “Whether it was scoring, which it happened to be, whether it was rebounding, my team needed me to do that. It helps when you have a team that constantly infuses confidence in you and never lets you sit in your mistakes.”
In the first matchup with the Billikens this season, the Minutewomen claimed a 72-55 road victory. In that game, Gray did not score a single point in just 14 minutes on the court. Senior Stefanie Kulesza led the way during that win, scoring 21 points. In Thursday’s game, which was Kulesza’s final collegiate contest, she scored 12 points and grabbed eight rebounds.
“[I cherish] the memories, the friends and the relationships that I’ve built over the past four and a half years,” Kulesza said. “It definitely was a long time, but it was a good time. So, I’ll definitely remember it for the rest of my life.”
UMass completed its season at 16-14, an unprecedented improvement from the 5-27 record from the 2023-24 campaign. The Minutewomen will use this season as an important step in rebuilding the program and bringing postseason success back to Amherst in the coming years.
“I’m really proud of our group,” Leflar said. “We’ve just showed a lot of tightness and fight this entire year and they’ve been a joy to coach, really great people to be around … Really proud of our progress, but I also know we have much higher goals in our future. If we can have a great group returning, you can start to reference this year and where we needed to improve.”
Cameron Pellegrino can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @cam_pellegrino.
