AMHERST — The question had barely left the reporter’s mouth when T.J. Weeks started to smile.
UMass was fresh off an 82-72 win over Rider on Wednesday night and the freshman guard was answering questions about the victory. But toward the end of the press conference, the topic of the Minutemen’s next opponent – No. 7 Virginia – arose and Weeks couldn’t hold back.
“It presents just a huge opportunity,” junior Carl Pierre responded as Weeks smile grew wider. “We’re excited to go.”
“Can’t wait for it, I’m ready to play,” Weeks quickly followed.
The excitement has been evident across the entire roster since the final buzzer of Wednesday’s win sounded. UMass is 5-0 for the first time since the 2013-14 season and now has a chance to play a top-10 opponent on a neutral floor close to home. The Minutemen and defending national champion Cavaliers (4-0) are facing off at noon in the first semifinal of the Air Force Reserve Basketball Hall of Fame Tip-Off at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut – a perfect midpoint for the large UMass alumni bases in Boston and New York.
Yet for the Minutemen’s freshman-laden roster, they see Saturday’s contest as a chance to prove themselves on the national stage.
“Being a freshman and how young are team is, you can see how eager everyone is to get out there and prove to everybody we’re no pushovers,” freshman center Tre Mitchell said Friday. “Just because we’re freshman, doesn’t mean anything.”
The most pressing challenge for the Minutemen is trying to solve Virginia’s defense and finding ways to score points. The Cavaliers under Tony Bennett have finished either No. 1 or 2 in scoring defense in seven of the past eight seasons. (They finished fifth in the 2012-13 campaign.) They’ve held teams to less than 40 percent shooting the past three years and are currently limiting opponents to 28.2 percent shooting from the field this season.
UMass coach Matt McCall said he has reminded his team repeatedly in the past 48 hours about making sure its passes are on-time and on-target and having the selflessness of making the extra pass. He said UMass cannot afford to waste possessions by trying to score over the long, athletic Cavaliers defense and need to continue to move the ball to open up shots for teammates.
Mitchell is a critical part of that scheme as the center of the Minutemen’s offense. How Virginia accounts for Mitchell, both when he’s posting up on the interior as well as shooting from the perimeter, will dictate a lot about the UMass attack.
“I’m just going to have to see where I see advantages on the court,” Mitchell said. “You see who moves their feet, who struggles with different stuff then it’s just our shooters. They’re going to determine a lot for us because by establishing myself in the post, (Virginia) is going to have to double and dig and stuff and it’ll be too late for them to close out to the shooters.”
As much as the focus will be on UMass’ offense, matching up with Virginia also puts a lot of stress on a team’s defense. That is especially true in a contest that features two contrasting styles of play with the Minutemen wanting to speed up the tempo and the Cavaliers trying to minimize possessions.
“We’ve got to play our style, we’ve got to press,” McCall said. “We played them in the tournament a while back (in 2012 while McCall was an assistant at Florida), the press was very effective. We need to do the same thing and get some tempo into the game. We can’t go into this game and just play in the half court, that plays into their hands, that’s not into our hands. We’ve got to get the game going up and down and throw our different looks out there and try to get a couple of easy baskets that will maybe settle the nerves a little bit.”
This will be UMass’ biggest test of the season and kicks off a stretch of four straight games against opponents from a Power Six conference. Right now, the Minutemen are finding ways to win games despite being inconsistent in many of the most important areas of the game. McCall said that won’t work against an experienced, well-disciplined team like Virginia, and the Minutemen must be prepared to put forth their best and most consistent 40 minutes of the season if they want a chance to win.
“I told our guys (Thursday), we’re a sometimes team,” McCall said. “We sometimes block out, we sometimes execute offense the right way, we sometimes press the right way. In order to beat Virginia, you’ve got to be an all-the-time team.”
Josh Walfish can be reached at jwalfish@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshWalfishDHG. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage.