AMHERST — It was the type of moment that had seemingly plagued UMass for the past month.
The Minutemen had once led by 11 points in the second half, but La Salle was on a 7-0 run to cut the lead to four with a little less than 13 minutes left. In past games, this was the time that UMass would allow an opponent back in the game and eventually falter down the stretch for a close loss. Yet when coach Matt McCall was granted a timeout to help calm down his players, his captain rose to the occasion.
Carl Pierre was the main voice in the UMass huddle for the 30-second timeout, repeating a mantra that has become a staple cliche in the sport. This time, though, it held true and the Minutemen extended the lead back to 10 and eventually held off the Explorers for a 77-69 win Wednesday night at the Mullins Center.
“He was very vocal talking about how they made their run so now it’s time for us to make ours, and we settled down and found a way to extend the lead again,” McCall said. “Carl did a lot of talking in there, and that’s what you want out of your leader.”
All of the lessons UMass learned from failing to close out four of their last six games were on display against La Salle. The Minutemen (7-8, 1-1 Atlantic 10) responded each time the Explorers cut into the lead with a run of their own. When UMass extended the advantage back out to a more comfortable range, it came up with stops to help solidify the lead instead of trading baskets. And most importantly, the Minutemen made free throws down the stretch as La Salle tried to extend the game.
After the Explorers (10-5, 1-2) cut the lead to three with 4:37 remaining, they were just 1 of 10 from the field the rest of the game to go along with three turnovers. UMass made just a single layup immediately after La Salle trimmed the deficit then made 8 of 12 free throws down the stretch to ice the game.
“It was just the result of a process,” Pierre said. “At the end of each game that we let slip away at the end, we came in, watched film and tried to emphasize what our mistakes were. (Wednesday), we just did that. We finished possessions with rebounds, hit our free throws, got stops, didn’t turn it over at the end. It was the manifestation of the process.”
The one chance La Salle had to get back in the game was to capitalize on the offensive rebounds it collected in the second half. The Explorers crashed the glass for 12 offensive rebounds over the final 20 minutes, but turned those into only five second-chance points. The reason was the tenacity UMass showed in defending the rim that made life difficult for the Explorers inside.
La Salle struggled to finish around the rim and lost many of the one-on-one battles on the glass against UMass. In particular, the Explorers could not contain Samba Diallo, who secured 12 rebounds for his second consecutive double-digit rebound performance. The sophomore forward said he relished the chance to be physical with La Salle’s front court and he thrived off the physicality of the battles.
“It’s something you expect in every game that you go into because they’re always going to be physical,” Diallo said. “That’s something that we always expect. For me personally, practice, games, it doesn’t matter, I’m always going to be physical. That’s something we look forward to, it’s competing and that’s fun.”
Diallo finished with 12 points, but made his impact as a distributor as well for the Minutemen. He led the team with six assists, oftentimes drawing the La Salle defense near the foul line to open up lanes for him to dump the ball into Tre Mitchell posting up near the basket. It showed a greater comfort for Diallo on the offensive end, a year after McCall admitted frequently that the Senegalese forward was often lost on offense.
“He threw some great high-low passes to Tre,” McCall said. “La Salle fronts and we knew that going into the game, they do a great job working around and fronting the post. … Samba kept flashing in there and getting Tre on the high-low, … there’s no question he’s becoming more comfortable on offense.”
Pierre made as big of an impact with his shooting in the first half as he did with his words in the second half. The junior guard made all six of his shots in the first half, including a run of 11 straight UMass points to close the half, highlighted by back-to-back off-balanced 3-pointers in the final minute of the half.
Pierre finished with 16 of his team-best 20 points in the first half, but attempted just two shots in the second half. Though with La Salle trying to deny the ball to Pierre, it opened up some opportunities for Mitchell, who scored 12 of his 19 points in the second half.
“You’ve got to give them credit for how they guarded (Pierre) in the second half,” McCall said. “We were trying to get him going there, but what happened was as aggressive as they were, it kind of opened up some things for Tre on the inside with some post-ups. You’ve got to continue to take what the defense gives you.”