The Massachusetts men’s basketball team clinched a trip to Cleveland for the Mid-American Conference (MAC) tournament with a win over Ohio (15-15, 9-8 MAC) in its last regular season game. The win snapped a six-game skid and was UMass’ (16-15, 7-11 MAC) biggest margin of victory against a Division I team since Dec. 6.
Despite running into many familiar troubles throughout the course of a tight game, the Minutemen prevailed behind a rejuvenated defense and a brilliant 31-point performance from Marcus Banks Jr.
With two minutes and the season hanging in the balance, Banks Jr. attracted the attention of a pair of Bobcat defenders and zipped the ball to a wide-open Luka Damjanac for a layup. On the ensuing inbounds pass, the graduate transfer jumped the lane for a steal and finished at the rim to ice the game.
Banks Jr. took over in the second half with a spectacular display of all-around shot making. Leading all scorers, the Virginia native poured in 31 points on an efficient 8-for-15 from the field, 6-for-12 from three and 9-for-9 from the free throw line.
The guard’s six threes put him at 107 three-pointers on the year, tying the UMass single-season record for threes set by Luwane Pipkins in 2017-18, and taking two less threes to do it.
“Banks [had an] unbelievable performance,” Ohio head coach Jeff Boals said. “We lost him a couple times in our press, there were some mental errors, but when you give a shooter like that confidence… It was the difference in the game.”
A Minutemen defense which has struggled all year stepped up just as the season was nearly lost.
A defeat to the Bobcats, paired with Ball State’s win over Western Michigan and Buffalo’s over Eastern Michigan, would’ve mathematically eliminated UMass from the postseason, delivering the coup de grace to a disastrous first season in the MAC.
With 10 minutes left, this conclusion seemed imminent. In the third straight missed game for Daniel Hankins-Sanford, Leonardo Bettiol singlehandedly shouldered the team’s interior presence. Ohio’s long and athletic frontcourt had been frustrating him all night, and with 10 minutes to go the foul-prone Italian picked up his fourth.
Under immense pressure, the Minutemen refused to buckle. Instead, they made the defensive stand that the Mullins Center faithful had waited to see all year.
Switching to a half-court zone, UMass took advantage of the Bobcats lack of shooting and strung together one stop after the next. It finished the game on a 22-9 run, showing a spark of life during a season where despite a winning record, they’ve been outscored during the second half on average.
A lineup of Danny Carbuccia, Banks Jr., Jayden Ndjigue and Dwayne Wimbley Jr. provided the Minutemen with an adaptable and competitive defense down the stretch. The four’s combination of strength, mobility and ability to switch on the perimeter was a major part of the final rally.
Charles Outlaw, who had not played rotational minutes against Div.-I competition prior to Tuesday, was a surprise contributor to the win. The 6-foot-9 junior transfer bolstered the center rotation with Bettiol in foul trouble. He recorded a block, a steal and an and-1-putback in a promising rotational debut.
“Our resiliency, and continuing to battle,” head coach Frank Martin said. “[We] handled the end of this game so much better than, not just the last six games, but since we’ve been in league play.”
UMass will play Miami (OH) in the first round of the MAC tournament in Cleveland. The Minutemen will try for an upset on Thursday, March 12 with tip-off scheduled for 11 a.m. at Rocket Arena. The game is available to stream on ESPN+.
Coleman Smith-Rakoff can be reached at [email protected].
