UMass Falls Short at "Home" (Recap of UMass - Stanford NIT Semifinal)

Last week I was at the DAC to see UMass face Drexel in the NIT Quarterfinals.  With about sixteen minutes left in the game and the Dragons up seventeen, it seemed pretty certain there would be a little bit of Philly flavor at Madison Square Garden for the NIT Semifinals.  But the Minutemen went into a half court trap, shot seventy percent from the field in the second half and used a 26-7 run to go on and defeat the Dragons 72-70.

Considering the other NIT final four teams were Washington, Minnesota and UMass' opponent on Tuesday night, Stanford, it kind of figured from a geographical sense that the Minutemen would have the largest contingent at the World's Most Famous Arena.  But I wasn't prepared for the sea of maroon that made up most of the Garden crowd as I entered my seat in Section 118.

It was kind of fitting that MSG was transformed into a UMass home game, given the fact their first three NIT games were all on the road.  They first knocked off Mississippi State in overtime in the first round, then "upset" number one seed Seton Hall in the second round, then finally the stunning rally at Drexel last week.   But despite having the home crowd, the Minutemen still wore the road maroon uniforms since Stanford was the higher seed.

Now in the first of three ironic twists of fate for me on the evening, our seats ended up being in the only Stanford section at the Garden Tuesday night.  When I got to my seat along with my friends Tieff and Mal, the game was tied at nine as Chaz Williams hit all three of his free throws after being fouled on a three point attempt.  However, it would be a long while before I would see UMass tie the game again.

Stanford would take the lead on a jumper by Dwight Powell, who entered the game for Andrew Zimmerman, who, I'll be honest, models his appearance after the Geico Caveman spokesman.  After Terrell Vinson hit a three pointer to cut Stanford's lead to two, 16-14, the Cardinal went on a 10-0 run, thanks to a couple of threes and a couple of turnovers by the Minutemen.  Stanford was up 26-14 and the Cardinal fans in my section were, needless to say, quite happy.

This wasn't the same UMass team that I saw rally against Drexel the week before.  Instead of getting it inside to their bigs, like the terrific Vinson, they seemed too happy to either have Chaz Williams drive the lane or chuck up three pointers.  Nearly half of their thirty two shots in the first half, fifteen were three pointers.  They only hit on four of those.

One player in particular, reserve forward Freddie Riley, was firing up shots from all over the place.  It seemed like there was never a shot that Freddie didn't like to take. The problem was he wasn't hitting many of them.  Riley was two of seven from the field in the first half and one of five from beyond the arc.  Part of me was hoping that UMass Head Coach Derek Kellogg would go out and literally pull Riley off the court.

Down 28-19, the Minutemen did go on a 10-3 spurt to cut the lead to two, 31-29 with about four minutes left. In the second ironic twist of the night, Riley accounted for five of those points, as he hit his only two shots of the first half in that spurt.  UMass would enter the half only down three 36-33.  It seemed that momentum was on the side of the "home" team.

Both teams were mirror images of each other in the first twenty minutes.  UMass and Stanford had very long players.  In particular, the Minutemen's Raphaiel Putney seemed to have a nine foot wing span and he again showed a nice touch from the outside, burying two three pointers in the first half. Neither team shot the ball well.  UMass shot thirty seven percent while Stanford shot thirty three percent.  Thus there were a ton of rebounds in the first half.  UMass had twenty five rebounds and Stanford had twenty four.

At halftime, the three of us went out into the newly renovated MSG concourse.  I have to say the Garden folks did a magnificent job.  The concourse and the hallways are much, much wider.  In fact, they are so wide, they are wider than most of the concourse at Met Life Stadium.  Yes, a 20,000 seat basketball arena has a much wider concourse than an 82,000 seat football stadium.   

The food selection is also much better now at MSG.  Yes you have the standard hot dog, hamburger and fries fare.  But there is now now a lobster and shrimp roll stand (though closed), a sausage concession that sells cheese bratwurst and Carnegie Deli, which was my choice on the evening.  A turkey sandwich, piled high with meat, a warm knish and a large lemonade was my dinner.   Yes, it was about twenty five bucks.  But a Carnegie Deli turkey sandwich was much more filling than your standard small hot dog.

The second half was mostly a nip and tuck affair.  For the first sixteen minutes of the half, Stanford's largest lead was five points.   UMass would keep it close, mainly due to Williams, who scored twelve second half points, six more than any other Minutemen player.  However, UMass would only have the lead once, when Riley hit his only field goal of the second half, a three pointer that put the Minutemen up 50-49.

But Anthony Brown, who had thirteen of his career high eighteen points in the second half, drilled a three pointer to put Stanford up 52-50.  The Cardinal would not trail the rest of the way, despite committing ten second half turnovers.   This was due to UMass breaking out their half court trap midway through the second half, the same trap that helped rally them against Drexel last week.

This time, the Minutemen couldn't capitalize on those turnovers.  Williams hit two free throws to tie the game at fifty two with 7:18 left.  But after that, Stanford went on a 15-4 run over the next five plus minutes.   Duiring that span, UMass went ice cold from the field, missing eight of their nine field goal attempts.  Williams seemed out of control, missing on all three of his attempts in that span.

Stanford was up eleven, 67-56 with less than two minutes left.  The realization then finally hit me, the third ironic twist of fate. Based on the Mid Majority's criteria,  I was about to see my last game involving a mid major this season.  Fifty eight Division I games I had seen in person this season to this point. All of them had involved at least one mid major team (again based on Mid Majority's Criteria).  The other NIT semifinal pitted two Power Six conference teams.  My fifty eight game mid major streak was about to end.  The fifty ninth and last Division I game I would see live this season would be my only non mid major game.

Williams did his best to try to keep the Minutemen and the Mid Majority's last hope in the NIT alive by scoring six of his team's last eight points.   But it wasn't enough, Stanford went on to win 74-64.   The Cardinal had another thirty rebounds in the second half as they held UMass to thirty percent shooting from the field in the last twenty minutes.

Before the game had ended, a Stanford fan in the row in front of us, turned around and said "How many New Yorkers do you think will walk in to see a Stanford -Washington Championship game on Thursday?"  We all started laughing, knowing the answer.   The NCAA and the Garden's hopeful championship game cash cow, UMass, was being shown the exit door.

Stanford showed nice balance, with four scorers in double figures, led by Brown's eighteen. Josh Owens had fifteen points, Aaron Bright had thirteen and Chasson Randle had twelve points.  Meanwhile, for UMass, only Williams with nineteen points and Riley with ten had double figure.  Williams and Riley combined to shoot ten of twenty eight from the field.  Vinson, who was terrific against Drexel, only had eight points, ten less than he had against the Dragons.

Shortly after the buzzer had sounded, there was a mass exodus from the Garden seats of the folks in maroon. As Tieff, Mal and I went out to the concourse in search of ice cream, the ultimate comfort food, there seemed to be a Minuteman fan clad in team colors every two feet.   You saw the occasional Stanford, Minnesota or even the rare Washington fan.  They were though few and far between in a sea of UMass faithful.

So most of the 7500 in attendance were leaving unhappy.  It was a shame given the terrific turnout of support for their school.  Having attended many NIT games over the years at the Garden, it was definitely one of the best fan bases I ever saw for one team.

In the end though, it didn't matter.  When you shoot not even thirty four percent from the field on the game, it's hard to win, even at "home".

And last night, UMass didn't win at "home".

Drexel's Wonderful Season Ends (Recap of UMass vs. Drexel)

When Drexel defeated Northern Iowa on Sunday in the second round of the NIT, it gave the Dragons another home game. This was assured when UMass upset Seton Hall on their home court on Saturday.  It also gave me the opportunity to purchase three tickets for the Tuesday night game at the DAC.

It also meant that Dragons' Head Coach Bruiser Flint was going to face for the first time his former pupil, Derek Kellogg, head coach of the Minutemen.  Flint was an assistant coach at UMass when Kellogg was the point guard under John Calipari.  It's a fascinating story that was described here on CSNPhillyTalk.com.

I left work early on Tuesday Afternoon (cue the Moody Blues song) and picked up my color analyst, aka my older son Matthew from school.  Then my friend Tieff met up at our house and we went on our way to Philadelphia.  The trip lasted about two and half hours due to traffic on the Staten Island Expressway and the New Jersey Turnpike (a New Jersey State Trooper had to clear downed road signs from the left lane due to an accident).

When we drove down Market Street, a spot opened up literally in front of the DAC.   I parallel parked the car into the spot, then paid six bucks for three hours at the kiosk.  Needless to say, we were quite happy with our good fortune.

For Tieff and I, this was the fourth game we had seen at the DAC.  As were about to walk into the entrance, Tieff commented that the gym might be very warm tonight.  In our previous trips, the gym had been pretty warm.

But Tieff had been the harbinger of doom on Tuesday night.  When we entered the gym, it was the warmest it had ever been.  It turns out that the oppressive heat at the DAC would play an integral part of the second half.  All that was missing was Matthew Broderick commenting that the gym was "Africa hot".

Matthew was dressed for the "Africa hot" gym wearing a Drexel Dragons T-shirt.  When I was in Philly last year for the Hofstra-Drexel game, I signed him up for the Drexel Dragons Youth Club and I got him the t-shirt for free.  Matthew was excited to see his new favorite player, Samme Givens, who he watched have a terrific game vs. Northern Iowa on Sunday morning.

This was my second NIT quarterfinal that I have witnessed in person.  Back in 2006, when Hofstra "made the NIT", thanks to another NCAA Selection Committee snub, the Pride hosted a quarterfinal against Old Dominion.  Due to that NIT Quarterfinal in 2006, I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach about this.   But I did my best not to show it and hoped that Drexel would continue their run with another win on Tuesday night.

We got our tickets from Will Call and sat in one of the upper rows behind the Drexel bench.  The DACPack, the great Drexel student section, was already in their seats raring to go, chanting loudly before the tipoff.  One of those students sitting behind the UMass basket held a sign that said "Kellogg's Frosted Minutemen".  Give the kid an A for humorous originality.

Drexel did not seem fazed by the oppressive heat and stormed out to a 9-0 lead.  Samme Givens scored five of the first nine points with his usual display of post moves.  What had already been a loud gym was now way above raucous.

The Minutemen would finally score behind a very familiar face to Tieff and me. Chaz Williams, who played his freshman year at Hofstra, would score the first five points for UMass on a layup, then a three point play to cut the lead to 11-5.  Williams, who is definitely not the five foot nine he is listed at, was a member of the CAA All Rookie Team for the Pride two years ago before he transferred to the Minutemen.  When he saw Williams for the first time, my color analyst commented to me "Number three is so small".

But Drexel continued to score at will in the paint and they jumped out to a 17-5 lead. UMass would come back and cut the lead to 23-17.  But the Dragons responded and stretched the lead back to ten, where it would stay for the rest of the first half.

As I had previously noted, the Dragons kept doing most of their damage in the paint, where they scored thirty four of their forty one first half points.  Most of the damage was being done by Givens and Dartaye Ruffin, who was a member of the CAA All Rookie Team last season.  Givens had ten points, but it was Ruffin that was the most impressive.  He hit eight of his nine field goal attempts and had seventeen first half points.

Drexel was up 41-31 at the half.  Despite shooting forty seven percent, UMass was down ten points because the Dragons shot fifty one percent from the field.  It was an impressive feat by both teams considering neither team had a three pointer in the first half. The Minutemen missed both of their three point attempts while the Dragons missed all seven of their shots from beyond the arc.

Thanks to the oppressive heat, it seemed like the entire crowd was waiting on the concession line during the halftime intermission.  The concessions stand ran out of water.  Thus Matthew and I had to purchase lemonade instead.  Now this wasn't an issue for me, but for my six year old son who only drinks water, it was a big problem.  He begrudgingly and slowly drank some of his lemonade, just enough to keep him hydrated.

There was no halftime show at the DAC.  I guess the wonderful folks at ESPN, who were televising the NIT, didn't want to have any terrific performers like the Bucks County Bungee Jumpers, who we saw at the halftime of this year's Hofstra vs. Drexel game.   Considering the great atmosphere of a sold out gym and a more than lively student section, the Bungee Jumpers this time might have brought the place down.

The Dragons picked up right where they left off in the first half.   Derrick Thomas scored the first four points on layups and Drexel now had a 45-31 lead.  Kellogg immediately called timeout to wisely slow down the Dragons' momentum.  But Drexel continued to score in the paint and a Frantz Massenat three point play put the Dragons up by their biggest margin, seventeen, 53-36 with not even four minutes gone by in the second half.

It looked like the Dragons were about to punch their ticket to the World's Most Famous Arena, Madison Square Garden.  It seemed that Drexel was about to have the chance to show on a national stage how the Selection Committee had wrongly left them out of the NCAA Tournament.   All that stood between them and a bus trip to New York City was sixteen minutes.

That and the Massachusetts Minutemen.

UMass switched to a half court trap and that started to bother Drexel.  The Minutemen would score nine straight points and cut the lead to eight, 53-45.   Another Thomas layup briefly stemmed the tide and put the Dragons back up by ten, 55-45.  But UMass' Jesse Morgan then scored the next five points and the lead was down to five, 55-50 with eleven and a half minutes left.

In the span of four and a half minutes, the Minutemen had outscored the Dragons 14-2. During this period of time, the Dragons were one of ten from the field and turned the ball over four times.  When they weren't turning the ball over and broke the UMass press, instead of being aggressive and trying to score, Drexel just settled  into their half court offense.  Perhaps it was the heat that made them tired, but the Dragons didn't seem to have their legs.

As a result, the Minutemen continued their rally.  Terrell Vinson was doing most of the damage, along with Williams and Morgan.  Vinson scored seven of UMass' next twelve points, but it was Morgan's three that gave the Minutemen their first lead of the game, 62-60 with a little over seven minutes left.

Bruiser called timeout, perhaps a little too late.  But the damage was done.  UMass had completed a 26-7 run and left the DAC crowd stunned in silence.  The points that Drexel had scored at will in the paint in the first half had dried up due to the Minutemen converging on any Dragon in the lane.  Meanwhile, Chris Fouch had been rendered useless by the UMass' defense, as he hit on only one shot for the entire game, a three pointer early in the second half.

Out of the timeout, Givens scored to tie the game at sixty two.  But Vinson had the hot hand and scored the next six points to put the Minutemen up by six, 68-62.  The Drexel fans by me now were very anxious as they saw their season start to slip away.

But the Dragons rallied.  After Massenat hit two free throws with 1:23 left, Drexel was only down two, 72-70.  The crowd, especially the DACPack was now incredibly loud.   Vinson missed his next shot and Drexel had a chance to tie.  But McCoy missed a short open jumper and Givens just missed on a tip shot.  The Dragons were forced to foul Williams, one of UMass' best free throw shooters.

Willams though missed the front end of the one and one attempt and Drexel had a chance to tie.  Flint called timeout to setup a play.  As Drexel came out on to the court, Kellogg looked over the Dragons' offensive formation and immediately called timeout.   The chess match was on for the last sixteen seconds of the game.



As I recorded the last fifteen seconds of the game, Drexel inbounded the ball to Givens, who handed the ball to Massenat, with Williams guarding him.  Massenat dribbled back and forth at the top of the key, then got a pick from Givens.  Vinson, who had been guarding Givens, switched off and guarded Massenat, who then drove the lane.  The taller Vinson forced Massenat's shot attempt to fall short and hit off the front rim.  The ball was tapped out to center court and Fouch's desperation heave was off as the buzzer sounded.

UMass had held onto the 72-70 win.  The Drexel fans were numb, stunned by what had happened.  It was the Dragons' first home loss of the season.  In the second half, the Minutemen torched one of the best defensive teams in the CAA, shooting seventy percent (17 of 24) from the field.

Vinson scored fourteen of his eighteen points in the second half.  Williams led all scorers with twenty points, as he shot eight of thirteen from the field.  The Minutemen as a whole shot a blistering fifty nine percent for the game.

Massenat scored ten of his sixteen points in the second half, but was only six of twelve from the free throw line.   The team that had led the CAA in free throw shooting during the season at over seventy four percent only shot sixty five percent on the night, sixty percent in the second half.  Ruffin led all Dragons with eighteen, but none of those points came in the second half.  In his last game in a Drexel uniform, Givens scored twelve points, but only two in the second half.

What had I thought had been a little familiar about this game, compared to what happened to Hofstra six years ago, really now had become very similar in its outcome.  Six years ago, Hofstra, the third seed in their bracket, had won their first two games in the NIT before hosting Old Dominion in the Quarterfinals.  This included a win over second seeded St Joseph's, who just happened to be the two seed in the three seed Drexel's bracket as well this season (St Joe's lost to UNI  in the first round).

The Pride would end up losing to the Monarchs after having an early second half lead, just like the Dragons (Hofstra was up by eight compared to Drexel's seventeen point lead).  Both Hofstra against ODU and Drexel against UMass on Tuesday night seemed very tired in the second half.   In Hofstra's case, the Monarchs' physical play and deep bench wore the Pride's seven man rotation down.  On Tuesday night, the Minutemen's trap and the heat of the gym wore the Dragons' seven man rotation down.  In Josh Verlin's terrific recap of the game, Bruiser noted that they "ran out of gas at the end".

Still, even with the loss, Drexel, like Hofstra, deserved to have made the NCAA Tournament.  The Dragons had won nineteen games in a row before losing to VCU in the CAA Championship Game, then won another two games in the NIT.  Drexel won twenty nine games this season, a team record.   Unlike two of the other NCAA bubble teams; Seton Hall and Mississippi State, Drexel made it to the NIT Quarterfinals.

With the win, UMass had its third NIT road win in a row.  They had previously knocked off Mississippi State and Seton Hall.  Now they added Drexel to their impressive resume of wins.  The Minutemen head to MSG for a date with Stanford.  I get to see them one more time next week.

As for Drexel, outside of Givens, their entire team returns next season.  However, Givens will be a huge loss.  After the game was over, many people in the stands called out Samme, thanking him for his contributions over the four years.  He consoled Massenat, who was distraught from missing the potential game tying shot.

For one last time, Givens was again the consummate teammate.