MHERST Maybe it was the new year. Maybe it
was the opening of Atlantic 10 Conference play, or
contributions from a couple of different faces that
helped. Or maybe the University of Massachusetts men's
basketball team was just sick and tired of letting its
opponents dictate the terms, a pattern that had produced
the school's worst start in 20 years.
 Monty Mack 8-14 from inside the arc. |
"The game of basketball is simple," Flint said. "When we do the things we need to do, we're pretty good. When we don't, we're pretty bad."
UMass (3-9, 1-0 Atlantic 10) was pretty bad in the first half, trailing 37-22 with a minute left in the half, and 37-25 at the break. But a 31-7 surge gave the Minutemen a 53-44 lead with 9:19 left.
After withstanding a 7-0 GW run that cut the lead to 59-55, UMass pulled away with clutch foul shooting. Only two games after a 31-point loss to North Carolina that was the Minutemen's worst under Flint, they delivered a compelling statement that the season is not a lost cause yet.
Until UMass erased GW's 15-point lead, a rally from 12 points down in a 69-48 win over Drexel Dec. 12, 1996 was its biggest under Flint.
"We just went out and played our butts off," said Monty Mack, whose 28 points marked a season high. "We didn't want it to be the same as it was in (the year) 2000. It's 2001 now."
It's also the Atlantic 10 season, and yesterday was the league opener for both teams.
Kitwana Rhymer scored 11 points with four blocked shots and a season-high 16 rebounds for UMass, which had lost three straight and nine of 10.
"Kit went out and got everything off the boards in the second half," Flint said.
UMass was aided by solid efforts off the bench from Jonathan DePina (six assists, no turnovers), junior forward Eric Williams (five points and four rebounds in the second half), and freshman guard Jameel Pugh, whose 3-point basket gave UMass a 47-42 lead with 12:17 left.
 Shannon Crooks spots up for the J. |
Attila Cosby, a 6-foot-8 junior transfer from New Mexico (where he never played, though he did at Pittsburgh before transferring to New Mexico) who was playing his fifth game after becoming eligible, had 19 points and nine rebounds for George Washington (6-8, 0-1), which has lost seven of its last eight.
But Cosby became a non-factor in the second half, when he was bothered by back spasms and a more aggressive UMass defense.
Sophomore guard SirValiant Brown scored 16, but after hitting four of his first five shots, he missed nine of his next 10.
Cosby's basket gave GW a 39-27 lead with 18 minutes left. But UMass scored the next 15 points for a 42-39 lead, and after Mike King tied it with a 3-pointer, Williams' layup put UMass ahead for good and launched a telling 11-2 run.
The Colonials had made a 15-0 run of their own to take a 29-14 first-half lead.
That's when it looked as if this would be the latest dreary chapter to a miserable UMass season.
"But this is a new (A-10) season," Mack said. "That's the way we're looking at it."
MHERST With 15:59 left in yester- day's men's
basketball game against George Washington, University
of Massachusetts coach Bruiser Flint was fed up,
making Flint no different than most of the fans at the
Mullins Center.
 Point guard past Bruiser Flint advises point guard present Shannon Crooks. |
"I put him in," Flint said, "because I was tired of watching the guys we had out there."
Pugh played four minutes in the 76-60 victory, and he had only one basket, a huge 3-pointer that gave UMass a 47-42 lead. But he also represented just what a frustrated UMass fandom has ached to see a new look, a different option, a fresh face.
Given the way UMass had been going, yesterday's second-half turnaround might rank high on any short list of miracles. And Pugh wasn't the only fresh face who helped.
Eric Williams had five points and four rebounds in 10 second-half minutes. The new combinations shook up an undeniably stale formula and gave it life, which is all many impatient UMass watchers have asked.
"To tell you the truth, when (Flint) called me to go in, I was shocked," Pugh said. "I was glad he had confidence in me. I wanted to show what I could do."
What Pugh can do is dunk, score and excite. If basketball were figure skating, he'd win the long program, where the athlete is allowed to create.
Flint wants him to learn the compulsories, the patterns of offense and defense. What the fans have wanted from this floundering team and its coach is more creativity, and less addiction to the compulsories.
Playing a flamboyant freshman carries risk, but it also seems better than dying a slow death, as UMass has been doing.
Pugh likes and respects Flint, and he's been willing to wait his turn. But he thinks he can help.
"My confidence is always high," said Pugh, whose career had previously consisted of 18 garbage minutes. "It's the coach's confidence that has to be high."
Pugh's first entry yesterday lasted 24 seconds, and boos rang out when he was pulled. The fans want Pugh, or any new combination, for a logical reason at this point, what is there to lose?
"Jameel has been doing some good things in practice," said Flint, who has assured Pugh his time would come. "Offensively, I don't worry about him."
He does worry about Pugh in a set offense, and on defense. With reason.
"I asked Jameel if he could cover (George Washington guard) Val Brown," said Flint, referring to the nation's No. 2 scorer last year. "Jameel asked me what number Val Brown was wearing. So I told Jonathan DePina to cover Val Brown."
But while Pugh was far from the only reason UMass won, one sequence highlighted his impact.
When he went in with 12:48 left, UMass led 44-42. Thirty seconds later, he hit his 3-pointer.
When he came out with 8:54 left, the Minutemen led 53-44. It was probably the game's decisive stretch.
Pugh remains an unwrapped athletic gift, and he makes mistakes. But he is also a breath of fresh air on a team that has needed one.
Flint, the ultimate micro-manager, may be inching toward trusting his mercurial freshman more as long as Pugh keeps working on those compulsories.
"I'm playing the guys who give me what we got in the second half," said Flint, who knows Pugh isn't the total answer.
But maybe he's part of the answer. So may be Williams and on the right days, Willie Jenkins and Jackie Rogers, too.
That would at least give UMass a different look. Given the look so far, it's hard to see how a different one might not be worth a try.
MHERST - Bruiser Flint has tried speeches - until fresh words and
ideas deserted him. He's tried different rotations and group
discussions - anything for motivation.
 Crooks gets ready to work past Bernard Barrow. |
Instead, UMass assistant Mike Connors scooped up a pair of oranges and fired them against the wall. So Flint picked up another orange and threw his own high heat.
``Somehow oranges ended up all over the locker room,'' senior guard Monty Mack said. ``There was a lot of anger, because they didn't feel we were playing as hard as they wanted us to.''
Not even Flint, probably, could have seen what was coming. The Minutemen, who had trailed by as many as 15 points in the first half, came back with the greatest comeback of any Flint-coached team for a 76-60 victory over the stunned Colonials.
``We did in the second half today what we've talked about doing the entire year,'' Flint said after the Minutemen's Atlantic 10 Conference opener. ``You saw some of those shots and plays we were making in the first half. We had to do something.
``At some point these guys have to realize, `I'm tired of this.' But the thing about going with Blizz (Ronnell Blizzard), Eric (Williams), Jameel (Pugh) and Jonathan (DePina) in the second half is that they put a whole different energy in the team.''
Flint went with the aforementioned group - all reserves - as a major part of his rotation in place of forwards Micah Brand and Winston Smith and point guard Shannon Crooks.
Brand and Smith were benched for the second half. Crooks came back to play a solid second half, including a 7-for-9 performance from the free throw line, as part of a three-guard set that included Mack and DePina down the stretch.
Mack finished with a season-high 28 points, and senior center Kitwana Rhymer consumed the backboards in the second half, finishing with 11 points and 16 rebounds - the seventh double-double of his career.
The Minutemen (3-9, 1-0) responded with their most overpowering burst of the season. The 21-3 run for a 48-42 lead coincided with a seven-minute, 1-for-7, two-turnover stretch from the Colonials (6-8, 0-1). The burst included a pair of Williams putbacks and a deep 3-pointer by Pugh from the top of the circle, in addition to nine points from Mack and four from Rhymer.
The Colonials cut the UMass lead to five points, 60-55, on a Chris Monroe drive with 4:02 left, only for the Minutemen to dig in with a 7-0 burst that included a Crooks drive off a steal and Mack's lane-splitting crossover drive for a 65-55 edge with 1:31 left.
The Minutemen then ventured into truly rare territory, and shot 10-for-10 from the line over the last 1:11 to close out the victory.
MHERST - Tom Penders isn't afraid to admit that UMass was his
preseason choice to win the Atlantic 10 Conference.
 Kit Rhymer tries to win the rebound, he finished with 16. |
``Every time I see them play they have very good personnel, and today they played the way they're capable of playing,'' Penders said. ``Maybe this is the game that will turn things around for them.
``I picked them to win it in the preseason. Not to put the whammy on (coach) Bruiser (Flint) or anything, but there isn't a team in this league that they can't beat.''
Getting defensive
A good portion of Flint's ire yesterday was connected to all of those open George Washington shots in the first half, with 6-foot-9 transfer Attila Cosby making good use of his looks to score 12 of his 19 points in the first half.
But defense, as usual, turned the momentum for the Minutemen.
SirValiant Brown, who came in averaging 18.9 points per game, finished with a hard-earned 16 points on 5-for-15 shooting. Chris Monroe, GW's leading scorer at 20.2 points per game, finished with 10 on 4-for-12 shooting.
``He's a good player,'' Flint said of Cosby. ``But when we stepped out and guarded him in the second half, we blocked his shot three times. It's a matter of who wants to play.''
Kitwana Rhymer and Ronnell Blizzard rotated on Cosby in the second half. Jonathan DePina drew Brown a good portion of the time and finished with a mistake-free, six-assist stint in 28 minutes.
``I thought the most important person was Jonathan - he was flawless,'' Flint said.
Freshman Jameel Pugh, who got the most out of a deceptively low four-minute stint yesterday that included a big second-half 3-pointer, is on the verge of receiving more time.
``I've been telling Jameel that his time is coming, because I like what he's been showing in practice,'' Flint said. ``I was just tired of the guys I had in there, so I asked (Pugh) during a timeout, `Can you guard Val Brown?' And he asked, `What number is he?' So I said, `Jonathan, you guard Brown.' ''
Flint had little problem benching Micah Brand and Winston Smith after the two combined to shoot 1-for-3 from the floor with four turnovers in the first half. . . .
Rhymer had four blocks yesterday to give him 103 in his career, making him the seventh UMass player to break 100. But his 16 rebounds were the key yesterday.
MHERST -
Which play was the actual turning point
of the game is debatable. There were
several to chose from.
 Monty Mack and the Minutemen broke away from GW in the second half. |
The key moment could have been the second-half insertions of UMass reserves Eric Williams, Ronell Blizzard, Jonathan DePina and Jameel Pugh. The foursome provided a sizable spark that ignited the Minutemen and the crowd of 4,443.
Kitwana Rhymer said the key play was his put-back layup from an offensive rebound that brought the Minutemen within one point, 39-38, with 14:48 to go. He was fouled on the play by Chris Monroe. When the ball dropped through the hoop, thus giving him a chance for a three-point play, Rhymer howled with delight.
"When I got that rebound, it really felt like everything was going right for us," Rhymer said.
In Monty Mack's view, Pugh's 3-pointer shortly after he re-entered the game with 12:17 left was the key.
"Jameel's three really put us over the hump," Mack said.
That shot put UMass up 47-42.
No matter which play started the turnaround, the Minutemen (3-9, 1-0 A-10) snapped a three-game losing streak. They will try to create their first winning streak of the season Tuesday night at 7:30 at Xavier in Cincinnati, Ohio.
"We just went out there and played our hardest (in the second half)," Mack said. "Guys just did the things we had to do. It's a new year, we have to forget about the past and worry about the A-10 season now and try to carry this momentum over to every game."
Mack led the Minutemen with a season-high 28 points, while Rhymer added 11 points, a season-high 16 rebounds and four blocked shots.
Attila Cosby led GW (6-8, 0-1) with 19 points and nine rebounds. UMass held GW's high-scoring duo of SirValiant Brown and Chris Monroe to 16 and 10 points, respectively.
"We've been on the road traveling all over the world," George Washington coach Tom Penders said. "I'm not trying to give us a crutch, but the game is 40 minutes and it seemed like we totally ran out of gas."
The Colonials owned the game's first half. A 13-0 run led by Cosby turned a 16-14 squeaker into a 29-14 rout-in-the-making with 7:16 left in the first half.
GW answered an 8-2 UMass run with a 6-0 run to get the advantage back to 37-22 with just over a minute to go in the first half.
A free throw and a lay-in by Rhymer made it 37-25 at halftime.
"In the second half, we told ourselves we have to take control," Rhymer said.
"In the second half we came out and did exactly what we talked about doing," Flint said. "Shoot a high percentage. Hold them down. Rebound the ball. Execute."
The Minutemen looked like a different team right away after intermission. Mack and Rhymer combined for 14 points in a 20-2 run to open the half.
Williams' tip-in with 14:05 left in the game gave UMass its first lead since very early in the game at 40-39.
 Shannon Crooks had a tough day shooting from the field, but hit a solid 8-10 from the stripe. |
King tied the game with a three from the corner, but UMass refused to surrender momentum. Williams grabbed an offensive rebound and put the Minutemen ahead again - this time for good - with a put-back.
Pugh swished an open 3-pointer from the top of the key to build the lead to 47-42 as the home team picked up steam.
After UMass stretched the advantage to 59-48, the Colonials mustered their final run.
Monroe sandwiched a long Cosby 3-pointer between two layups of his own to cut the Minuteman lead to 59-55.
Instead of crumbling under the duress as it had on many other occasions this season, UMass answered with a 10-1 run to make it 69-56. The Minutemen hit all 10 free throws in the final two minutes to clinch the victory.
As Shannon Crooks stepped to the free-throw line for the last of those shots with six seconds left in the game, Mack egged on the applauding crowd. With a grin that started and ended at each ear lobe, the he raised his arms repeatedly.
"We didn't want it to be the same as in 2000," Mack said. "We wanted to go out here and make a new mark."
MHERST -
With his team trailing 37-25 at halftime,
University of Massachusetts coach
Bruiser Flint took the shovels out of the
hands of some of the players that helped
dig that hole. He began the second half
with starters Shannon Crooks, Micah
Brand and Winston Smith on the bench.
 Micah Brand, perhaps still hampered by lingering illness, only played 16 minutes with 4 points. |
Rogers' stint was short lived as he picked up his third and fourth fouls quickly. Instead of going to Brand, Flint turned to Eric Williams, who hadn't played in the first half.
Freshman Pugh joined the mix shortly afterward.
All four made key contributions.
Williams grabbed four boards and scored five crucial points down the stretch. His teammates fed off his energy as he dove on the floor after a loose rebound.
DePina, who has been plagued by free-throw and turnover trouble, showed no signs of either problen. He had six assists (five in the second half), no turnovers and went 4-for-5 from the line.
"The most important person tonight was Jonathan," Flint said. "He was flawless tonight. He didn't make a lot of baskets, but he got us into stuff. He didn't turn the ball over. He played good defense. He got us in the offense so we got good shots."
Blizzard was steady and helped keep Chris Monroe 10 points below his season average. He also scored a key basket in the UMass run that finished off the Colonials.
In six games, Pugh has gone from non-factor to key factor. He sat out the team's first six games. In the next five, if he did play, it meant the game was out of reach. But Saturday, amid a game that was getting tighter, Flint gave the freshman a shot.
"I was shocked when he called my name," Pugh said. "Before, he put me in when games were pretty much over. I'm just glad he had the confidence in me to put me in when the game had some meaning to it. I felt like if I was going to get out there and play I was going to show him what I can do."
While Flint praised his play, he took a playful barb at the freshman's ignorance about his opponent.
Pugh ran to the scorer's table, checked in, then ran back to the timeout, where Flint asked him if he thought he could guard SirValiant Brown, GW's sophomore guard, who averaged 24.6 points per game last year.
"He said 'OK, what number is he?' " Flint said, rolling his eyes.
But Flint put Pugh in anyway.
Pugh's first stint on the floor lasted only 10 seconds. He checked in, threw a nice pass to Rhymer for an assist, and then came out after committing a foul at the other end.
The crowd booed when Flint re-inserted Mack for him and cheered when the coach put the freshman back in shortly afterward.
Pugh drained a wide-open 3-pointer that lengthened UMass' lead as it began to pull away.
"My confidence is always going to be high," Pugh said. It's just whether coach's confidence in me is going to be high."
Flint was pleased with the reserves' contributions.
"Those guys brought a different energy to the floor," Flint said. "They did the things we needed them to do."
NOTES: Overcoming the 15-point deficit was the biggest comeback in Flint's tenure as a head coach. The biggest previous comeback came on Dec. 12, 1996 when UMass erased a 12-point deficit to Drexel. The last time a UMass team overcame a deficit of 15 or more was on Dec. 2, 1996, when the Minutemen fell behind, 28-12, to Maryland and came back to win ... Senior guard Monty Mack became UMass' third player to pass the 1,800-point plateau for his career. He entered the game with 1,780 points and then scored a season-high 28 points. He moved within 97 points of Lou Roe, who is No. 2 on the Minuteman scoring list with 1,905. Mack's two steals tied him with Jim McCoy for fourth on the school's all-time steals list with 141.
MHERST - With the Minutemen trailing by double digits late in the first half, two wise guys sitting in the Mullins Center's far end zone pulled brown paper bags over their heads.
 Monty Mack throws it up while being hacked. |
The University of Massachusetts men's basketball team has not only been lousy, but hard to watch as well.
Ineffective offense, sloppy ball-handling and inconsistent defense had defined the 2-9 Minutemen over their first 11 games.
When his team got down by 15 late in the first half, UMass coach Bruiser Flint might have wanted a bag of his own, maybe without the eye holes.
It's been that kind of year. The Minutemen, who'd been highly touted in the preseason, came out and fell flat on their faces.
So when they were down by 15 Saturday to the Atlantic 10's most potent offensive team, short of wishful thinking, there was no reason to believe they would mount a comeback.
In the second half, however, UMass at least resembled the team its fans had envisioned in the preseason.
"We did today in the second half what we've been talking about doing all year," Flint said. "We just stayed within ourselves. It had to click at some point. At some point we had to realize we're tired of this."
Ten players saw action and all 10 contributed. They came up with key defensive stops and made big shots.
Monty Mack was hard to guard and Kitwana Rhymer was a monster on the glass.
Maybe most surprising was that when the game was on the line, UMass was nearly perfect from the free-throw line.
For the entire nonconference season, most of the games were still competitive late, but the Minutemen couldn't seem to figure out how to win. Flint talked about confidence and how his team needed just a little taste of success to believe in itself. They got that taste Saturday.
Granted, the win came against a sub-.500 George Washington team that was at the end of a two-week road trip that included a stint in Hawaii.
But for the first time since playing Iona in the season opener, the Minutemen truly created their own success. They battled back from a deep hole and, more importantly, once they took the lead, they didn't fold when GW made a late charge.
"Normally we probably would have shut down, but we didn't," Rhymer said. "We knew we just had to do more."
GW coach Tom Penders picked the Minutemen to win the A-10 in the preseason and he still thinks they can.
"UMass has just been struggling," Penders said. "Maybe they found themselves today. They have very good personnel. They're very athletic. Today they played like they're capable of playing in the second half. Maybe this will turn things around for them.
"I picked them in the preseason to win," he continued. "I wasn't trying to put a whammy on Bruiser or anything. Based on the way they played in the second half, there isn't a team in this league they can't beat."
Saturday's win marked one of two things - the first steps back to respectability, or a rare bright spot in a long season.
But in that second half, the same two fans from the far end zone were cheering merrily along with everybody else, and their bags were nowhere in sight.
All clips in MPEG format.
Ronell Blizzard with the smooth stroke. (file size = 192k)
After learning last week, Shannon Crooks wisely converts his basket via layup instead of dunk. (160k)
Monty Mack hits the J and earns a trip to the line. (160k)
Mack's confidence was visible after hitting a shot. (160k)
Mack steps in and puts down the shot. (120k)
That'll get you on the highlight reel too: Jameel Pugh hits the 3. (216k)
In just four minutes of work, Pugh seemed to come a long way and everyone loved it. (216k)
Eric Williams: right place, right time. (232k)
The Minutemen pick up a steal and Jon DePina feeds Kit Rhymer for the basket. (336k)
Can't stop him: Rhymer and one. (344k)
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| George Washington Colonials | 60 |
| Massachusetts Minutemen | 76 |
| at the Mullins Center | |
GEO WASHINGTON (60)
fg ft rb
min m-a m-a o-t a pf tp
Cosby 32 8-13 2-2 2-9 2 2 19
Ngongba 20 1-3 0-2 1-4 0 3 3
Monroe 27 4-12 1-2 2-3 1 5 10
Barrow 21 0-2 0-2 1-6 3 4 0
Brown 30 5-15 5-6 0-2 2 5 16
Roma 1 0-0 0-0 0-1 0 0 0
King 24 3-8 0-1 0-0 1 3 7
Miller 10 0-0 0-0 0-2 2 1 0
Iturbe 11 0-0 1-2 1-1 0 0 1
Chandler 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Smith 19 1-3 2-2 2-5 0 2 4
Collucci 4 0-2 0-0 0-0 0 1 0
_______________________________________________
TOTALS 200 22-58 11-19 9-33 11 26 60
_______________________________________________
Percentages: FG-.379, FT-.579. 3-Point Goals:
5-15, .333 (Cosby 1-1, Ngongba 1-1, Monroe 1-4,
Brown 1-4, King 1-4, Smith 0-1). Team rebounds:
11. Blocked shots: 2 (Ngongba, Monroe).
Turnovers: 16 (Brown 5, Cosby 3, King 2, Miller
2, Barrow, Iturbe, Ngongba). Steals: 3 (Barrow,
Brown, Miller).
MASSACHUSETTS (76)
fg ft rb
min m-a m-a o-t a pf tp
Smith 13 0-1 2-2 0-0 2 2 2
Brand 16 1-2 2-2 0-3 0 2 4
Rhymer 35 5-8 1-4 4-16 1 3 11
Mack 37 10-25 6-8 0-2 1 1 28
Crooks 29 2-11 8-10 2-3 1 2 13
Depina 28 0-1 4-5 1-1 6 3 4
Rogers 10 2-2 0-0 1-3 0 4 4
Blizzard 18 1-3 0-0 0-2 1 0 2
Williams 10 2-2 1-2 2-4 1 1 5
Pugh 4 1-2 0-0 0-1 1 1 3
_______________________________________________
TOTALS 200 24-57 24-33 10-35 14 19 76
_______________________________________________
Percentages: FG-.421, FT-.727. 3-Point Goals:
4-19, .211 (Smith 0-1, Mack 2-11, Crooks 1-3,
Depina 0-1, Blizzard 0-1, Pugh 1-2). Team
rebounds: 3. Blocked shots: 5 (Rhymer 4, Brand).
Turnovers: 8 (Brand 3, Crooks 2, Rogers 2,
Smith). Steals: 7 (Depina 2, Mack 2, Brand,
Crooks, Williams).
__________________________________
Geo Washington 37 23 - 60
Massachusetts 25 51 - 76
__________________________________
Technical fouls: None. A: 4,443. Officials:
Larry Lembo, Jack Sweeney, Ken Clark.