Coverage from:
The Daily Hampshire Gazette
The Massachusetts Daily Collegian
The Boston Globe


Travieso saves UMass win
By Marty Dobrow, Daily Hampshire Gazette Staff, 2/7/97

AMHERST -- Where in the world was Carmelo Travieso?

Standing a good 25 feet from the basket with some 12 seconds left in the game, Travieso sprang into the air and let fly. It was the shot that launched 10,000 gasps.

The University of Massachusetts only trailed Duquesne by a point, 71-70. The Minutemen didn't need a 3-pointer, certainly not from that far. And there was still so much time on the clock. What was he doing?

But after several anguished moments watching the long flight of the ball, the Mullins Center crowd exploded with joy. Travieso's prayer from Pelham was answered, dropping neatly through the hoop. And after a Duquesne timeout and Clifton Jones' errant leaner, UMass escaped with an improbable 73-71 victory.

"I just felt confident that I could knock it down," said Travieso. "They didn't think I would shoot it from there, so they left me a little open."

The decision to take the shot floored even Travieso's teammates.

"Wow!" said Charlton Clarke. "He does it all the time in practice. We joke around from out there, but in a game like that with the game on the line, I didn't think he'd do it. He proved me wrong again."

Travieso's shot capped a 7-0 run to end the game that allowed UMass to escape with a win on a night when even some of the Minutemen didn't think they deserved it.

Photo - Click for larger image
Travieso shot just 5-15 from the floor, but proved to be the savior in the end.
"We were very, very, very fortunate," said Clarke. "We shouldn't have won this game because Duquesne played a great game."

"We were listless tonight," said coach Bruiser Flint. "No emotion. Nothing."

Duquesne almost made the Minutemen pay dearly. The 7-12 (3-6) Dukes outscrapped UMass for much of the game and got a stupendous performance from Tom Pipkins (28 points), but made some critical errors down the stretch.

Duquesne was up 71-66 after Terrell Bridges hit one of two free throws with 1:25 remaining. Clarke missed a runner, but Lari Ketner tipped home the rebound to cut the gap to 71-68.

Ketner then blocked a Mike James shot, but Duquesne corraled the rebound. Rather than run the clock down, the Dukes chose an open 3-pointer from Clifton Jones, but the shot caromed off the rim.

Clarke brought UMass within one by hitting two free throws with 31.8 seconds left.

Again, Duquesne attacked the pressure, but James dribbled the ball off his leg and out of bounds with 26.3 seconds left.

After getting the ball to halfcourt, UMass called timeout with 23.4 seconds left.

The Minutemen were looking for a "throwback'' play that had resulted in a good inside hoop early in the game, but Travieso asked Flint before breaking from the timeout if he had permission to shoot an open 3-pointer should the opportunity arise.

"Can you make it?'' Flint said.

Duquesne switched up from a 2-3 zone to a 1-3-1 with John Davis responsible for the left wing.

"The scouting report says that he can catch and shoot from anywhere over halfcourt," said Duquesne coach Scott Edgar. "You can't play your normal rules (which dictate coverage to about one step beyond the arc) against him."

Davis did not pursue Travieso to the 25-foot mark, and the UMass senior let fly.

The result was another in a series of galling losses for Duquesne, and a victory salvaged from the scrap heap for the 13-10 (7-3) Minutemen.

"Carmelo made a big shot," said Flint. "But we can't play like that."

Ketner led the Minutemen with 18 points. Travieso and Clarke had 16 apiece, and Tyrone Weeks had a double-double with 15 points and 11 rebounds.

The Minutemen get right back to work at noon Saturday at Rhode Island.


Travieso's long range bomb staves off Duquesne
By Casey Kane, The Mass. Daily Collegian Staff, 2/7/97

When a game is on line in the final seconds, it is a team's seniors who are expected to shoulder the burden. When the Massachusetts men's basketball team needs a big shot at the end of the game, it is senior guard Carmelo Travieso who shoulders the burden. Last night at the William D. Mullins Center, Travieso stepped up and made a huge 3-point shot with nine seconds left to lift UMass (13-10, 7-3 Atlantic 10) over Duquense (7-12, 3-6) 72-70.

"He walked out of the time-out and he asked me, 'If I'm open for the three, can I shoot it?'" Minuteman coach James "Bruiser" Flint said. "I said 'Can you make it?' and he said yes. So I said, 'If you're open, shoot it then.'

"He's a senior, he's supposed to step up and make shots like that."

Travieso didn't just take a shot, he dropped a bomb on the Dukes, firing the ball from about 25 feet out.

"After I shot it I said, 'What did I just do?' Because it took a long time for it to get there," Travieso said. "I was just thinking where the basket was at. I wasn't thinking about the shot when I took it."

The shooting guard wasn't the only one surprised by his bucket.

"Wow," sophomore guard Charlton Clarke said when asked his reaction. "He does that all the time in practice, but in a game like that, with the game on the line, I didn't think he would do it. He proved me wrong again." Travieso's shot, which gave UMass only its seventh lead in the game, negated a tremendous effort from Duquense's senior point guard, Tom Pipkins.

The Dukes' leading scorer, Pipkins had been averaging 18.9 points per game coming into the contest in Amherst. But at the Mullins Center, he broke loose for a game-high 28 points.

Pipkins was backed up by Nick Bosnic, who was one point away from a season high with 17, and Mike James, who chipped in for 12.

But James only stands 6-foot-3 and Bosnic 6-foot-7, while the Minutemen start Tyrone Weeks (6-foot-7) and Lari Ketner (6-foot-10) and have Inus Norville (6-foot-8) and Ajmal Basit (6-foot-9) coming off the bench.

"Before Traviseo hit his, I think size and strength won out," Duquense coach Scott Edgar said. "They weren't making their first one but they were just pounding it, pounding it, and getting second chances."

The Dukes started the game strong, running out to a 13-4 lead with 14:08 remaining in the first half on the strength of Bosnic's play and a half-hearted effort from the Minutemen. "We took this team lightly and they really took it at us," Weeks, who finished with 15 points and 11 rebounds, said. But UMass chipped away, cutting the deficit and taking the lead at 23-22 with 7:48 before intermission.

The Minutemen reached their largest lead of the game with 2:48 left in the first, when a Travieso 3-pointer put the UMass advantage at 37-32.

But Duquense would not go to the locker rooms quietly, as James reeled off a jump shot and a pair of free throws to give the Dukes the halftime edge, 40-37.

UMass made a run for the lead in the first seven minutes of the second half, twice reaching margins of four. But from the Duquesne bench, Edgar gave the green light to Pipkins, who poured in 16 points during a nearly nine�minute stretch. During that time (9:55-1:50), Pipkins was the only Duke to score.

Pipkins' run gave the Dukes thoughts of a win, and a lead of five with 1:25 remaining in the game. But a tip-in by Ketner and a pair from the line by Clarke set the stage for Travieso's heroics.

"Every game we play comes down to the end," Bosnic said. "They always make plays to beat us."

Travieso's shot, though, was one the Dukes just didn't anticipate.

"They didn't think I was going to shoot it from there," he said. "I'm just glad it went in. I didn't think it went in until Winston [Smith] came and breathed on me."


Travieso finishes Dukes
By Joe Burris, The Boston Globe Staff, 2/7/97

AMHERST - University of Massachusetts guard Carmelo Travieso hauled in a pass 5 feet behind the 3-point arc with 12 seconds left, his team down to Atlantic 10 foe Duquesne by a point. Moments earlier during a timeout, the Minutemen's best outside shooter asked coach Bruiser Flint for permission to launch a trey if open.

"Can you make it?" Flint asked.

"Yes," Travieso responded.

"Then go ahead, shoot it," Flint said.

Twelve seconds left. Travieso squared up to the rim, standing about 10 feet from the UMass coaching staff. Duquesne's John Davis, though warned about Travieso's exploits from long range, backed off, apparently convinced he wouldn't shoot from such a distance - certainly not with so much time on the clock.

But the senior from Dorchester let the shot fly, suspending the outcome between dramatic win and disheartening loss. Had he missed, he might have never lived the moment down. But he hit it. Nothing but net with 9.1 seconds left, putting UMass up by 2. Duquesne's last possession proved futile, and the Minutemen escaped with undoubtedly their most exciting victory of the season, a 73-71 decision over the upstart Dukes last night.

The victory boosted UMass (13-10, 7-3) three games over .500 for the first time this season. It was the Minutemen's 10th consecutive win over Duquesne (7-12, 3-6), which outplayed UMass for most of the game and led, 70-64, with 1:50 left before the hosts capitalized on several turnovers in a dramatic rally.

It was capped by Travieso (16 points), who shot miserably from the floor (5 for 15, 4 for 10 from 3-point range) but was confident he could hit the trey in the clutch. Still, when he launched it, even he was surprised.

"I thought to myself, `What am I doing?'" he said. "I asked Bruiser and he said if I was open to go ahead. I didn't think I was open, but I just said, `To hell with it.' My teammates were probably looking at me - `What is he doing?' But I just felt confident I could knock it down, and they didn't think I was going to shoot it from there. They left me a little bit open and I just shot it."

It marked the first winning shot as a collegian for Travieso, who sank two decisive free throws in the closing seconds of UMass' 47-46 victory over UNC-Wilmington Dec. 22. On Dec. 27, he missed a potential tying 3-pointer in the closing seconds of UMass' 64-61 loss to Connecticut.

His teammates were confident he wouldn't repeat that effort last night. "Carmelo can shoot that shot, but we didn't want him to shoot it from that far out," said guard Charlton Clarke (16 points), who sank two free throws with 32 seconds left, cutting Duquesne's lead to 71-70. "He just proved his range and proved he's a clutch player for us. He's been doing it all season. Luckily, this one went in."

Travieso's shot sent the partisan crowd of 9,185 into a frenzy and prompted Duquesne to call a timeout. Many expected the Dukes' next shot to go to guard Tom Pipkins, who had a game-high 28 points, including 16 straight in the second half. Instead, the Dukes pushed the ball up the floor and Clifton Jones, who hadn't hit a shot in four attempts, drove in for a baseline layup that bounced off the rim.

"I would have rather seen Mike James or Pipkins take it to the length of the floor or pitch it to one another," said Duquesne coach Scott Edgar, whose team lost its fifth game this season by 2 points or fewer. Once again, the Dukes struggled down the clutch, particularly in defending Travieso.

"The scouting report on Travieso was that he could catch the ball and shoot it from anywhere across half-court, and you can't play your normal rules on him," said Edgar. "John Davis was on his wing, and he didn't lose it because he played competitively for 23 minutes. But ... he just had a mental laspse. This was Travieso, and he can hit it from 25 feet. He got close, but not close enough."


Duquesne Dukes 71
Massachusetts Minutemen 73
at the Mullins Center

DUQUESNE
                      fg    ft    rb
               min   m-a   m-a   o-t  a pf   tp
Price           20  4-10   0-0   2-5  1  3    8
Bosnic          32   7-8   2-2   2-8  1  2   17
Bridges         19   1-2   2-6   0-1  0  2    4
James           36  4-10   2-2   0-1  2  2   12
Pipkins         34 10-19   5-7   1-4  2  1   28
Stephenson       5   1-1   0-0   0-0  0  2    2
Sneed           14   0-0   0-0   0-1  4  0    0
Davis           23   0-1   0-0   1-4  1  4    0
Johnson          4   0-0   0-0   1-2  1  0    0
Walker           8   0-0   0-0   0-0  0  0    0
Jones            5   0-5   0-0   1-1  0  0    0
_______________________________________________
TOTALS         200 27-56 11-17  8-27 12 16   71
_______________________________________________

Percentages: FG-.482, FT-.647. 3-Point Goals:
6-13, .462 (Bosnic 1-2, James 2-3, Pipkins 3-7,
Jones 0-1). Team rebounds: 3. Blocked shots: 2
(Bridges 2). Turnovers: 9 (James 4, Pipkins 2,
Bosnic, Bridges, Price). Steals: 7 (Bosnic 2,
James 2, Pipkins 2, Price).


MASSACHUSETTS 
                      fg    ft    rb
               min   m-a   m-a   o-t  a pf   tp
Weeks           38  6-13   3-3  6-11  2  2   15
Clarke          35  5-11   6-9   4-6  3  2   16
Ketner          29  9-12   0-1   2-6  1  2   18
Padilla         33  1-10   0-1   1-4  6  4    2
Travieso        38  5-15   2-2   1-3  4  3   16
Smith           14   0-1   2-2   0-0  1  1    2
Basit            2   1-2   0-0   1-2  0  0    2
Norville        11   1-1   0-0   0-2  1  1    2
_______________________________________________
TOTALS         200 28-65 13-18 15-34 18 15   73
_______________________________________________

Percentages: FG-.431, FT-.722. 3-Point Goals:
4-19, .211 (Clarke 0-2, Padilla 0-7, Travieso
4-10). Team rebounds: 6. Blocked shots: 4 (Ketner
2, Travieso, Norville). Turnovers: 10 (Padilla 3,
Weeks 3, Clarke 2, Smith, Travieso). Steals: 7
(Weeks 4, Padilla 2, Travieso).

__________________________________
Duquesne           40   31  -   71
Massachusetts      37   36  -   73
__________________________________
Technical fouls: None.  A: 9,493. Officials:
George Watts, John Cahill, Gene Monje.

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