After an inconsistent 2017-18 campaign, UMass Basketball looks to finally be ready to put themselves back on the map and contend for the Atlantic 10 title.
2017-18 was a mixed bag for UMass under first-year head coach Matt McCall. On one hand, the team finished 5-13 in conference and was knocked out in just the second round of the Atlantic 10 Tournament. On the other, the team played surprisingly well considering that there weren’t a whole lot of horses in the stable for McCall to work with (seven players packed their bags after the firing of Derek Kellogg and the subsequent Pat Kelsey fiasco).
The roster did still have some talented pieces in Luwane Pipkins, CJ Anderson, and Malik Hines, and under-recruited freshman Carl Pierre was more than anybody expected he’d be, but still, it would have been a miracle for the Minutemen to finish any higher than they did. That’s especially true when one considers that off-court issues and injuries further softened their already thin frontcourt midway through the season, and they had to recruit quarterback Randall West off of the football team to man the post.
In a nutshell, there were a lot of positives to take away from the 17-18 campaign, and there’s some real excitement brewing in Amherst again after three consecutive down years. As mentioned above, Carl Pierre turned out to be a diamond in the rough, but Luwane Pipkins was the real show and was worth the price of admission alone. He broke out to the tune of 21 points per game and a 43% three-point shot.
On the coaching front, McCall showed a lot of promise by getting his team to compete with, and sometimes even beat, far superior rosters. For a squad with as many issues as UMass had, it’s surprising that they took Harvard to OT, swept the season series with Dayton, and beat Providence and Georgia convincingly.
This season, McCall will be back for his second year with a whole lot more to work with. Pipkins, Pierre, and Rashaan Holloway will be joined by five incoming transfers (including Djery Baptiste, who is set to join the team after he graduates from Vanderbilt in December) and three well-regarded freshmen. The depth issues that plagued the Minutemen last year shouldn’t be nearly as apparent, and they’ll have the pure talent to run with anybody in the A-10.
Of course, things could definitely go wrong, and chemistry will take time to build, but it’s reasonable to think this team will flourish in a conference with no obvious juggernauts. Barring health issues, here’s what you can expect from the Minutemen this season.