AMHERST — During last Friday’s 74-53 win over Maine, coach Matt McCall wrote a note to himself.
At face value, the message runs counterintuitive to the common notions about basketball. But for this UMass team, McCall is learning he might need to go some unconventional routes sometimes to help get the best out of his players.
“I wrote down on my play card and I need to continue to do this, but when we get a 10-point lead I need to burn a timeout,” McCall said after the victory. “When we have some momentum and have some flow going in the game, (we need) to settle them down and get them refocused and shift their focus back to this possession. All of a sudden you get the lead to 10 then they score a quick layup, come down, turnover, quick layup and it’s back to six. We have to avoid those types of situations.”
The revelation came on the heels of a roller coaster of a first half for the Minutemen against the Black Bears. After the first media timeout of the game, UMass went on a 20-3 run and held Maine without a field goal for almost nine minutes to extend the lead to 18.
Yet the Minutemen seemingly veered away from what was working in those nine minutes for the final five minutes of the half and the lead shrunk to nine by intermission.
Those lulls following big runs have become commonplace for UMass in the last month. It squandered second-half leads against St. John’s and Yale by getting too comfortable and losing focus for a split second. And it let a nine-point lead slip away against South Carolina in the final 10 minutes of the first half after dominating the opening 10 minutes of the game.
“I do think it’s a sign of youth,” McCall admitted. “Just catching your breath, we’re playing so fast at times and the ball is being flowed up and down and we’re trying to press and get in the right one, I do think there’s a youth component to that where as a head coach, I need to look at burning some timeouts to settle them in and refocus in those situations.”
McCall and his players are hesitant to use the fact most of the roster is freshmen as an excuse for anything, and that is true even for these lulls. Although McCall admits some of the issues can be attributed to youth, there are actual issues that lead to the poor play.
Last week, it was poor shot selection and being careless with the basketball after building the large lead. In other instances, it’s the Minutemen being too selfish at times or not moving the ball well enough around the perimeter.
Freshman point guard Sean East II said everyone on the team is aware of the youth and inexperience, but they are looking at the nonconference portion of the schedule as a way to build up calluses for the future. He said he fully believes the Minutemen are continuously learning from these mistakes and applying them in games as to make sure UMass ends the season stronger than it has begun it.
“We are freshmen, but we don’t like to look at it like that,” East said. “We know we’re going to take a bunch of bruises, we’re a young team. We’re just trying to get it all together. Hopefully at the end of the year, all of that freshmen stuff is out the window and we’re going to lock in and finish out strong.”
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.