Atlantic 10 Basketball: George Mason rising among key weekly takeaways
By Stu Luddecke
2. UMass is poised to break out
No team has had a more angering start to conference play than the UMass Minutemen (I would have given that honor to St. Joe’s were it not for their great win over Davidson). In a conference with a lot of parity and few great teams, this UMass squad was supposed to at least be in the mix to finish in the top 4 of the standings. Well, loe and behold, UMass is 0-4 to begin conference play and is staring down the barrel at 0-5 with a road game at VCU looming. For a team that boasts a lot of depth and talent with players like Luwane Pipkins, Carl Pierre, Jonathan Laurent, and Rashaan Holloway, that’s both surprising and endlessly frustrating, but it’s not time to give up on this team just yet.
The most important thing to note about the Minutemen is that despite their recent games’ end results, they haven’t let the wheels completely fall off the bus or given up on the season by any means. In their last three games, which have been at Saint Louis, at Dayton, and against George Mason, they’ve played possible conference title-contenders wire-to-wire and have even had opportunities to walk away victorious. They ended up losing those games by just 3, 5, and 5 points, respectively, and they showed more promise on defense over that stretch than they had at any point in the non-conference slate.
Surprisingly (and encouragingly), the recent problems for the Minutemen, who lead the A10 in points per game, have all been on the offensive end of the floor. After entering conference play as arguably the A10’s most high-powered scoring unit, they’ve seemingly forgotten how to hit shots. Pipkins, Pierre, and Curtis Cobb, all formidable shooters, have been ice cold from deep over the recent stretch, and one has to think that they will find their rhythm at some point soon. If and when they do, as long as they keep up their defensive intensity in the process, they should be able to run certain teams out of the gym.
Outside of the encouraging efforts and close final scores despite atrocious shooting, another positive for the Minutemen is the stretch of games they’re set to play following their date with VCU. Even if they do lose to the Rams, they’ll have more than a few opportunities to right the ship in the near future. Their next nine games are as follows:
Vs. Saint Bonaventure
Vs. Rhode Island
@ La Salle
@ St. Joe’s
Vs. Fordham
Vs. Davidson
@ George Mason
@ George Washington
Vs. Saint Joe’s
The majority of those contests are ones that the Minutemen should win even in their current state, and if they continue showing the same type of effort that they have recently against the conference’s elite, they could easily go 6-3 or better over that stretch and find themselves right back in the mix.
The bottom line for UMass is this: the effort and defensive intensity have been there, but offensive woes and a tough schedule have held them back. The offense is highly unlikely to slump all season, and the schedule will soften significantly. The math is simple as to what that means for the longterm outlook of the team.