yrone Weeks, starting for All-American center Marcus Camby, scored 10 of his 16 points in the first half as top seed Massachusetts rolled into the regional final with a 79-63 thumping of 12 seed Arkansas in the semifinals of the East Region at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.
 Edgar Padilla plays keep-away. |
"I told the team this morning that I didn't want them to be sitting in the hotel all day long," said Calipari. "I looked right at Marcus and told him not to sleep all day. He got caught in traffic and was late to shootaround. I want to preface that statement by saying that Marcus has never been late for anything."
Weeks made all four of his shots from the field in the first half as the Minutemen (34-1) returned to the East Regional final for the second straight season.
"It felt great to start a Tournament game," said Weeks. "I wanted to do my best. I gave it my best effort."
Camby finished with 15 points, Carmelo Travieso added 14 and Dana Dingle netted 12 for Massachusetts.
Massachusetts will meet second-seeded Georgetown in the regional finals on Saturday. The Hoyas knocked off third seed Texas Tech, 98-90, in the earlier semifinal tonight.
"It was a great defensive effort," Calipari added. "I'm very happy for my basketball team. We did what we had to do to win. They are a good, young basketball team. We put pressure on them early, which is just what we wanted to do."
The Minutemen were in the East Region final last season before losing to Oklahoma State at the Meadowlands Arena, site of this year's Final Four.
Pat Bradley scored 15 points and Kareem Reid added 12 for Arkansas (20-13), which was the lowest remaining seed in the Tournament heading into tonight's game.
The Razorbacks will not be in a regional final for the first time since 1993, when they lost to North Carolina in the regional semifinals. Arkansas won the national championship in 1994 and lost to U-C-L-A in the finals last season.
Arkansas' defeat was the first loss for the Southeastern Conference in 10 games in this tournament. Kentucky had earlier extended the streak to nine games when it beat Utah in the Midwest Region earlier tonight.
The Minutemen took control of the game by scoring the first 13 points of the game. Donta Bright started the game with a basket and added a three-point play to make it 5-0.
 Marcus Camby gets ready to put the moves on Darnell Robinson. |
Bradley finally ended Arkansas' scoring drought with a pair of free throws at the 16:25 mark. The Razorbacks shot just 5-of-27 (18.5 per cent) in the first half and only kept it close by making 14-of-16 foul shots. "I don't think it matters what type of team you are playing and you come out there and are in a 13-0 hole," said Arkansas forward Darnell Robinson. "Also, it did not help that we are not shooting the ball too well."
"It seemed like we couldn't throw the ball into the ocean," Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson said. "We missed four layups to start the second half, four layups. Those are missed opportunities. We put ourselves in a big hole."
Arkansas pulled within 43-26 on a hook shot by Darnell Robinson with 17:56 to play, but the Minutmen responded with a 15-4 tear as Weeks made four free throws and Dingle and Travieso added three points apiece.
Massachusetts shot 40 per cent (27-of-67) from the field, but made only 21-of-33 from the foul line. Travieso grabbed a team-high eight rebounds for the Minutemen, who were 4-of-15 from three-point range.
Lee Wilson also scored 12 points for Arkansas, which shot just 34 per cent (22-of-64) from the floor. The Razorbacks committed 25 turnovers, leading to 24 Massachusetts' points. Arkansas went to the line just twice in the second half while the Minutemen were 13-of-19 from the stripe in the final 20 minutes.
"I told my kids they were overacheivers," added Richardson. "I've never had a group that worked so hard. I know what it's like to get here, but I told them that now they had to hit the books, get their education."
TLANTA -- The University of Arkansas justified everyone's amazement
that it had gotten into the round of 16 with a demonstration of awful shooting
and inept ball control the likes of which even the Nets in their worst days
would have had difficulty matching.
 Inus Norville applies the defensive pressure. |
In the first half, the team that had shot 50 percent in knocking Penn State out of the tournament shot 18.5 percent, and nothing it did after that was going to be enough against the Minutemen, who took a 16-point lead into the locker room at halftime, and were never seriously challenged thereafter.
The only question was whether the Atlanta Olympic organizers, who are trying to pave a nearby park with commemorative bricks, would be able to finish the job with those provided by Arkansas.
The Minutemen go on Saturday to face Georgetown, 98-90 winners over Texas Tech, with a trip to East Rutherford and the Final Four on the line.
UMass, which coach John Calipari has called "the best team I've ever coached," showed that teamwork and the depth it is built on in making chitlins of the Hogs. The Minutemen lost All-America center Marcus Camby with three fouls with 9:17 left in the first half, and forward Tyrone Weeks sat down, also with three fouls just before the end of the half.
But Dana Dingle, Charlton Clarke, and even Rigoberto Nunez stepped up and played the same smothering defense and tough half-court offense that has taken the team to a 34-1 record.
If Arkansas had any illusions that it could rip off a second-half run to climb back into it, UMass quickly dissuaded them, with an 18-4 run to start the half, giving the Minutemen a 58-30 lead with 12:40 left. The only thing that kept it from being a complete blowout was the suddenly hot hand of freshman guard Pat Bradley, who, with a streak of two three-pointers and two two-pointers cut the lead to 18 points at 60-42 with 8:46 to go. The Razorbacks didn't get any closer until garbage time.
With 5:30 to go, Calipari, with a 22-point lead, let Camby, who had been fouled hard by Darnell Robinson, sit down. The game went on, but it was over just the same.
UMass came out smoking and stroking as Donta Bright and Camby combined to score nine quick points as the Minutemen ran out to a 13-0 lead with less than four minutes gone in the half.
Arkansas, playing a trapping, full-court defense, rallied behind guard Kareem Reid and forward Lee Wilson. An 8-2 run got the Razorbacks within five at 15-10 with 14:06 to play. But Carmelo Travieso hit a three, Camby threw down a big jam off a Bright miss, and Travieso hit the front half of a one-and-one to take the lead back to 11, at 21-10, with 11:54 remaining.
The Razorbacks tried to stop the bleeding with a timeout, but Dingle got a steal and a layup to cap an 8-0 run before Arkansas got a free throw.
But Nolan Richardson's team couldn't hit the floor if it fell out of bed. They shot 5-of-27 (18.5 percent) from the field in the first half, and, if it hadn't been for a 14-of-16 effort from the line, they could have gone home at halftime and no one would have noticed.
With 9:17 to go, the Razorbacks got a big break when Camby picked up his third foul trying to block a drive by Reid, who led Arkansas with 10 first-half points. Playing a lineup with no one taller than 6-foot-7, UMass didn't crack. Dingle (nine points in the half) and Weeks picked up the scoring slack, and Travieso and Edgar Padilla consistently fought off the Arkansas full-court press.
Even with Weeks (10 points) taking a seat with 1:23 to go in the half with his third foul, Arkansas left the court at the short end of a 40-24 score.
Arkansas played hard and forced frequent turnovers, but didn't have the talent to turn the turnovers into points. Other than Reid, a freshman from the Bronx, the Razorbacks' talent level is several notches below that of the team that played in two successive championship games, winning the 1994 title. They'll be back. But not this year.
| Arkansas Razorbacks (E12) | 63 |
| Massachusetts Minutemen (E1) | 79 |
| NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 at the Georgia Dome, Atlanta GA | |
ARKANSAS (63)
fg ft rb
min m-a m-a o-t a pf tp
Hood 18 1-6 3-4 1-5 0 4 5
Robinson 17 3-6 0-0 0-2 0 4 6
Reid 38 3-11 6-6 1-3 8 1 12
Towns 20 0-6 0-0 0-1 1 3 0
Bradley 37 6-10 0-0 1-3 0 2 15
Wilson 18 3-7 6-6 3-6 1 2 12
Williams 15 1-4 0-0 2-3 0 3 2
Davis 9 1-4 0-0 2-4 0 4 2
Thompson 22 4-9 1-2 4-6 2 3 9
Hall 5 0-1 0-0 0-1 1 0 0
Whitney 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 1 0 0
_______________________________________________
TOTALS 200 22-64 16-18 14-34 14 26 63
_______________________________________________
Percentages: FG-.344, FT-.889. 3-Point Goals:
3-15, .200 (Robinson 0-1, Reid 0-2, Towns 0-4,
Bradley 3-6, Davis 0-1, Thompson 0-1). Team
rebounds: 10. Blocked shots: 4 (Davis 2, Wilson,
Williams). Turnovers: 25 (Reid 6, Davis 4,
Robinson 4, Bradley 3, Hood 2, Wilson 2,
Thompson, Towns, Williams). Steals: 9 (Bradley 2,
Wilson 2, Davis, Reid, Robinson, Thompson, Towns).
MASSACHUSETTS (79)
fg ft rb
min m-a m-a o-t a pf tp
Dingle 30 4-9 4-7 3-7 4 0 12
Bright 33 5-14 1-1 1-6 0 3 11
Weeks 25 5-9 6-8 4-7 1 3 16
E Padilla 31 2-5 0-0 2-3 5 3 5
Travieso 35 5-14 1-1 2-8 3 0 14
Camby 18 5-8 5-10 4-7 1 3 15
Norville 8 0-0 1-2 0-2 0 5 1
Clarke 12 0-4 1-2 1-1 1 0 1
Nunez 3 1-3 0-0 1-1 0 1 2
Cottrell 3 0-1 2-2 1-2 0 0 2
G Padilla 2 0-0 0-0 0-0 2 0 0
Maclay 0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Burns 0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
_______________________________________________
TOTALS 200 27-67 21-33 19-44 17 18 79
_______________________________________________
Percentages: FG-.403, FT-.636. 3-Point Goals:
4-15, .267 (Bright 0-1, E Padilla 1-2, Travieso
3-9, Clarke 0-2, Nunez 0-1). Team rebounds: 2.
Blocked shots: 7 (Camby 3, Weeks 2, Travieso,
Cottrell). Turnovers: 21 (Bright 6, Travieso 4,
Clarke 3, E Padilla 2, Weeks 2, Camby, Dingle,
Norville, Nunez). Steals: 12 (E Padilla 5, Bright
2, Dingle 2, Travieso 2, Clarke).
__________________________________
Arkansas 24 39 - 63
Massachusetts 40 39 - 79
__________________________________
Technical fouls: None. A: 34,614. Officials:
Dave Libbey, Frank Bosone, Rick Hartzell.