AMHERST — When UMass needed to close out the game Wednesday night, it turned to its captain to lead the way.
Carl Pierre made 5 of 6 free throws down the stretch to help the Minutemen hold off VCU, 60-52 at the Mullins Center, leapfrogging UMass over the Rams into eighth place in the Atlantic 10. It was the Minutemen’s most complete end-game performances as well as UMass didn’t give VCU the room to try and make a comeback.
The Rams never had the ball with a chance to tie the game over the final three minutes and UMass had just one turnover while milking the clock and making 7 of 9 free throws in that stretch.
“We’re doing the little things,” Pierre said. “Knowing that at the end of games we need to burn clock a little bit and run good offense and take as much time off the clock as possible then finishing possessions. Then of course making free throws at the end of the game, we’re doing a pretty good job at that.”
Unlike in previous games, Pierre didn’t need to swoop in at the end to help guide UMass to victory. The Boston native, who had scored in double figures just three times in the past eight games, went off for 21 points Wednesday, helping carry the Minutemen when things weren’t going well for almost anyone else in the first half. He scored 13 points and made three 3-pointers in the first half to help UMass simply get to halftime within striking distance.
“My teammates were finding me and shots were just going down today,” Pierre said. “I was missing shots that I usually make in that month stretch, they were just going down. I had myself a good rhythm, a couple of mid-range pullups then got myself to the free-throw line. I feel like that helped me get my rhythm going.”
Pierre and freshman center Tre Mitchell combined to score 23 of UMass’ 28 first-half points as everyone else struggled to get on the scoresheet. The duo had carried the Minutemen (13-15, 7-8 Atlantic 10) for much of January before Pierre’s slump gave way to Mitchell’s dominance. Yet for one game at least, the pair were the offensive cornerstones the Minutemen needed to shoot 43 percent from the field against the Rams.
Mitchell added 19 points and 15 rebounds for his third double-double in the last four games, continuing his march toward inevitably being named the A10 Rookie of the Year in two weeks when the regular season concludes.
“I don’t think there’s enough we can say about Tre,” coach Matt McCall said. “The rebounding, just dominating the backboard, the scoring inside … and he just continues to have a phenomenal freshman year.”
After the lack of scoring diversity in the first half, UMass received some major contributions from role players in the second half. Sean East II scored all 10 of his points in the final 20 minutes while Keon Clergeot added a critical 3-pointer with a little more than six minutes left to put the Minutemen up by four. Yet offense was not the main trouble UMass had with VCU (17-11, 7-8) in the first half.
The Rams were outworking the Minutemen in the little areas of the game – most notably rebounding – and the mismatch in effort allowed VCU to take a 33-28 lead into the intermission. However, the Rams scored just 19 points in the second half and were outrebounded 24-15 over the course of the final 20 minutes as UMass erased both the five-point and seven-rebound deficits.
“We just needed to keep doing what we’re doing,” East said. “Offense wasn’t the problem in the first half, they came into the locker room talking about effort. They were outrebounding us by seven and we outrebounded them for the game, that was a big key. We just really locked in on the defensive end.”
UMass made just one real change in the second half to put the clamps on the Rams offense. McCall said he was trying to play the percentages and protect Mitchell – who was UMass’ only true healthy center with Djery Baptiste out with a knee injury – on the interior by having his team go under screens. After VCU made four of its eight 3-point attempts in the first half, the Minutemen started to be more aggressive and limited the Rams to just 1 of 9 shooting from behind the arc in the second half. It was part of an effort that limited VCU to 23.3 percent shooting in the last 20 minutes.
“Going into the game, our concern was their press and knowing Tre was going to have to play a lot of minutes,” McCall said. “They coming in statistically weren’t a great 3-point shooting team, so we decided to go under on pick-and-rolls. It was because of their numbers, but it was also to protect Tre. Well they bang home four or five and it was all because we were going under. It was like scrap that at the half. … We ramped up our half-court defense in the second half and we had more success than playing back and being more conservative.”