AMHERST — Matt McCall pulled the metaphorical alarm on his team Friday night.
He spent more time talking about the state of the UMass basketball program than he did explaining what went wrong in the 68-63 setback against Howard. All of the hard questions were being brought front and center just four games into the Minutemen’s season after a lackluster performance against the Bison.
The tone in McCall’s voice conveyed the seriousness of the compete issues currently plaguing UMass on the floor. But the challenge is finding a way to teach the intangibles like effort and hustle, which can’t easily be quantified in drills.
“We’re going to find out,” McCall said. “I’m tired of everyone (saying) ‘you’ve got eight games in 22 days,’ practice needs to be an all-out war every single day. It needs to be an all-out mentality every single day until guys learn how important that is.”
McCall took much of the blame for the Minutemen’s 2-2 start, not only as the leader, but the beacon of how to win consistently at the college level. He was a graduate assistant on the Florida team that won the 2006 national championship and the director of operations when the Gators won it all again the following year. He was an assistant on two Elite Eight and one Final Four team under Billy Donovan at Florida, and then took Chattanooga to the NCAA Tournament in his first year as a head coach.
Friday was a different kind of low for McCall after watching his team come out with no intensity in the first half and fall behind by 19 points. He said he didn’t scream or yell at halftime to inspire the Minutemen’s second-half charge, but that only highlighted the point he was trying to make about his team.
“That’s as disappointing of a performance as I’ve ever been apart of as a coach,” McCall said. “We’re going to have to do some searching here as a program, as a staff, as players to who’s really going to buy in to be about the right things. It’s pretty evident I haven’t done a good enough job of teaching what goes into winning.”
The biggest problem McCall has pointed out about his team is its on-ball defense. UMass has struggled to defend teams when they drive to the basket, resulting in fouls or easy layups. The Minutemen’s help defense is lacking and their rotations are a step slow, which gives shooters the space to step into their jumpers.
At first, it was potentially a schematic issue with players unclear about when they were switching off screens or who they were supposed to be guarding in certain defenses. But that problem was cleared up and the breakdowns are still happening, especially at crucial times in the game when UMass desperately needs a stop.
“You can’t just get continually whipped off the bounce, at some point you have to take some pride and sit down and say ‘I’m not going to allow this to happen, I’m going to sit down and guard,’” McCall said. “We don’t do that enough. Maybe it’s lineups, maybe we need to look at some things about whose in the game and who can give us some more on the defensive end of the floor because we’re not going to shoot out our way to victory.”
There was plenty to correct with the offense in Friday’s loss – a lack of rhythm, taking too many 3-pointers or missed free throws – but McCall cautioned that fixing those problems won’t solve the major issue with UMass. He said there will be games when the Minutemen shoot 50 percent from the field and win, which might make the fans and team happy, but will only sugarcoat the attributes that prevent UMass from taking the next step and be a consistently winning program.
“Offense is easily corrected,” McCall said. “Defense is a mentality, it’s a focus and we don’t have that edge.”
So that leaves UMass in an interesting position heading into Monday’s home game against Arkansas-Pine Bluff. The 7 p.m. tipoff is the second of two home games that are part of the Las Vegas Holiday Invitational and McCall said the Minutemen are already at a critical point in the season.
“There were times last year where it felt like we hit rock bottom, and we’re there right now,” McCall said. “We need to find ourselves as a basketball program, and it starts with myself as the coach and our coaching staff.”