Across the nation, mid-major basketball conference tournaments are widely known to be chaotic.
No matter how flawless a team is in the regular season, all it takes is one cold night for a tournament bid to slip out of its grasp. On the flip side, a team with obvious holes can put everything together for three to four days and suddenly find itself dancing. The Mid-American tournament is one of the top examples of March magic, only sending its top seed to the Big Dance seven times over the past 20 years.
Coming out of Tuesday night, the Massachusetts men’s basketball team is projected to finish somewhere between fifth and seventh in its new conference. From a pure numbers standpoint, history says that placement is not too low for a tournament berth. Just five years ago, No. 5 seed Ohio punched its ticket out of the conference.
If the numbers check out, there’s one (extremely major) missing piece for the Minutemen (15-9, 6-6 MAC) to make things interesting in March: their on-court play. The elements that make up a successful postseason team popped up at times for UMass against Central Michigan, helping it secure a 95-89 win.
When a team’s outmatched on paper, as the Minutemen will likely be this postseason, the easiest way to win is to outshoot the other side. UMass unequivocally did not do this against the Chippewas (7-16, 3-8 MAC), but it still shot threes at a clip that would beat out the vast majority of Division I teams. For shooting 45.8% from deep, head coach Frank Martin has one Marcus Banks Jr. to thank.
Banks Jr. was simply outstanding on his home rims Tuesday night. The UMBC transfer took the perimeter game he’s been known for to an entirely new level, finishing with 37 points on a school record 10 made threes. Once the ball touched the graduate student’s hands, the Mullins Center crowd swelled in anticipation, a classic sign of a game-changing shooter.
“[I got] shots out within the flow of our offense,” Banks Jr. said. “[I took] what the defense [gave] us, and I don’t know what they were doing, but they gave me a lot of threes tonight.”
Some of Banks Jr.’s best moments came at crucial times for his team. Just a few minutes into the second half, the Minutemen were down seven, needing a run sooner rather than later. Over the next two minutes, the guard hit three triples, darting through screens and spotting up to deflate Central Michigan’s defense. In crunch time, he hit back-to-back treys to turn a four-point deficit into a two-point lead. UMass probably shouldn’t rely on him to hit 10 threes when it’s fighting to extend its season, but mixing his hot stretches with some help from deep can go a long way.
On the other end, the Minutemen need to shore up their perimeter defense if they want to make noise in March. The home squad got very lucky that the Chippewas couldn’t convert late: if they had, the explanation for a UMass loss started with allowing the opponent to shoot 68.2% from deep. Twelve of Central Michigan’s 15 makes came from senior guard Logan McIntire, a shooter who seemed to get more open as the game progressed.
“[Our] attention to detail was bad [on McIntire],” Martin said. “[If] you let a good shooter get his feet under him and lift and see that rim and shoot that ball in rhythm, you created a problem. The first one we gave him was in rhythm.”
Past shooting, most media pundits point to guard play as the main engine driving a postseason run. If a team has good guards, they increase their odds of stealing a tight game. Again, the Minutemen showed both positives and negatives in this department.
Danny Carbuccia was the bright light in the backcourt against the Chippewas. The true freshman showed poise beyond his years, directing traffic and making numerous smart reads throughout 36 minutes of playing time. Between outlets, chest passes and lobs down low, almost every find was on the money, and it led to him setting his own UMass record with a whopping 17 assists.
Between the above-average facilitator (Carbuccia) and the above-average shooter (Banks Jr.), the Minutemen have a head start on a strong backcourt in March. The one missing piece within the unit on Tuesday was K’Jei Parker, who went scoreless for just the second time this season. The junior has shown signs of reliable shooting as recently as late January: getting him back up to speed likely does wonders for UMass’ offensive versatility.
Owning the glass also gives a boost to a basketball team that needs it. The Minutemen have graded out as a strong team in this category all season long, but they have had occasional slipups on the glass that have cost them games. Their rebounding against Central Michigan likely ends up as an average showing.
Matching the Chippewas with 10 offensive rebounds seems okay on first glance, but the home team was expected to have more of an advantage over a Central Michigan team that is below average nationally at extending possessions. Overall, Chippewas out-rebounded UMass by two. Minutemen wings and forwards alternated between showing good and poor instincts on the glass all night; more good will be needed if they see elite rebounding teams like Akron and Kent State in Cleveland.
All three of these categories – three-point shooting, guard play and rebounding – should likely be monitored during UMass’ home stretch of regular season play. The next opportunity for the Minutemen to test their mettle lies on Saturday, Feb. 7, when they’ll take on Coastal Carolina in leg two of the MAC-Sun Belt Challenge. That game tips off at 1 p.m. on ESPN+.
Dean Wendel can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @DeanWende1.
