UMass Basketball: State of the program after end of 2019-20 season

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 26: Tre Mitchell #33 of the Massachusetts Minutemen dribbles around Greg Calixte #33 of the George Mason Patriots during a college basketball game against the George Mason Patriots at the Eagle Bank Arena on January 26, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images) /

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WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 26: Sean East II #10 of the Massachusetts Minutemen (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images) /

It was an up-and-down year for UMass Basketball hoops. Here are my thoughts about the season that was, areas of concern to address this offseason, and opinions about where this team is headed in the near future.

The 2019-2020 season left me with a lot of conflicting feelings as a UMass basketball fan. On one hand, we were picked to finish 11th in the Atlantic 10 and finished 8th, we started out with a Kenpom ranking of 240 that ended up at 165, and we were playing some of our best basketball late in the season – something we haven’t seen from a UMass group in some time now.

On the other hand, it’s hard to not wonder about the position that we could have been in if a couple more things had broken our way; if TJ Weeks had been healthy for the whole season, if Dibaji Walker had been cleared from the start, or if we hadn’t laid eggs in some big games (eg. the Harvard and Davidson ones). Still, I think the feelings that I have now are mostly positive as we put this season behind us and look towards 2020-2021.

As of right now (though a lot can change over 8 months), we are set to return all of our best players, Weeks should be recovered from his surgery, and the incoming freshman class is shaping up nicely. It’s too early to know exactly what the final roster will look like; some players are bound to transfer out, Keon Clergeot could grad-transfer, and there are still some recruits that the coaching staff is going hard after.

What we do know, however, is that we have a player who should be on the shortlist for A10 PotY in Tre Mitchell, some nice depth no matter who composes it, and arguably the most promising PG situation that we have had since the Chaz Williams era. As far as that last point, Sean East and Kolton Mitchell should both make sophomore leaps (though again, nothing is for certain), and Javohn Garcia is widely recognized as one of the most underrated guards in this Freshman class. A commitment from Femi Odukale (a Brooklyn PG deciding between UMass, Pitt, Seton Hall, among others) would be icing on the cake.

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