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UMass Basketball: Expectations for the Minutemen in 2018-19

By Stu Luddecke

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 8: Members of the Massachusetts Minutemen walk off the floor after losing to the George Mason Patriots during the second round of the Atlantic 10 Basketball Tournament at Capital One Arena on March 8, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 8: Members of the Massachusetts Minutemen walk off the floor after losing to the George Mason Patriots during the second round of the Atlantic 10 Basketball Tournament at Capital One Arena on March 8, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images) /
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AMES, IA – NOVEMBER 23: Head coach Matt McCall of the Chattanooga Mocs coaches from the bench in the first half of play against the Iowa State Cyclones at Hilton Coliseum on November 23, 2015 in Ames, Iowa. (Photo by David Purdy/Getty Images)
AMES, IA – NOVEMBER 23: Head coach Matt McCall of the Chattanooga Mocs coaches from the bench in the first half of play against the Iowa State Cyclones at Hilton Coliseum on November 23, 2015 in Ames, Iowa. (Photo by David Purdy/Getty Images) /

UMass Basketball returns a lot of talent in 2018-19 but still has questions to figure out. Here’s what to expect for the Minutemen as far as their ceiling and how they’ll most likely perform.

The Minutemen finished The 2017-18 season 5-13 in conference play and 11-20 overall. Just looking at the standings, it was an incredibly disappointing season. Taken in context, however, things could have been a lot worse, and the team provided reasons to be hopeful about the future.

After the 2016-17 season and the firing of Derek Kellogg, literally half the team packed their bags and left with him, such as go-to scorer Donte Clark and highly-touted newcomers Dejon Jarreau and Brison Gresham. The team was gutted. To make matters worse for the Minutemen, the first coach they hired to replace Kellogg, Pat Kelsey, got cold feet 30 minutes before his press conference and left Amherst for good.

The season was set for disaster, and once hired, Matt McCall had his work cut out for him in terms of putting an even somewhat respectable team on the court. Despite continued drama and setbacks throughout the season, however, he succeeded. He did whatever it took to field a competitive team: offering a last-minute scholarship to Carl Pierre, flying to Chicago to convince Luwane Pipkins to stay, giving decent minutes to walk-ons, even recruiting backup quarterback Randall West to play the post.

When you look at all the obstacles the Minutemen had to deal with, 11-20 suddenly looks impressive. There were a lot of positives to take from the season as well: Pipkins established himself as perhaps the best player in the conference, Pierre shot 47% from deep, and the team snagged marquis wins over Providence and Georgia.

This season, UMass won’t have the same problems coming in. They’ll bring in five transfers and a solid group of freshman to help out Pipkins, Pierre, and a (hopefully) eligible Rashaan Holloway. They will be legitimately good on paper, and most pundits have them in the top half of the conference. The question is: just how good could they actually be?

Note: I didn’t do a “floor” section because there are just too many variables and if I took them to the fullest extreme, I’d be forced to project a 0-30 record (if the entire team got hurt/was ineligible/dropped out/etc.).

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