The Massachusetts men’s basketball team has played a smattering of nationally relevant opponents this season. If you asked the casual college basketball fan who its toughest test was on paper, you’d likely get a host of wrong answers.
Miami (OH) (83rd in KenPom this morning) would be the most popular choice: after all, wouldn’t the top 25 team be the best? Other people might go with Florida State (89th) or Boston College (147th) off the ACC pedigree, or Charleston (175th) with its recent March history.
Standing 18 spots above any other foe is the Akron Zips, a Mid-American juggernaut that plays fast, runs up the score and does nothing but win at home. The Minutemen (15-11, 6-7 MAC) took them on in said home gym Friday night and they hung with them the whole way, losing 99-92 off a few too many empty defensive possessions.
Much of the second half was played with a five-to-10 point Zips (20-5, 11-1 MAC) advantage. Any punch UMass brought on offense late was countered quickly by the home team, and going basket-for-basket does a trailing squad no good.
With under four minutes to play, the Minutemen had a still-manageable seven-point deficit on their hands. Both teams had traded turnovers in their previous possessions, and the burden was now on head coach Frank Martin’s squad to get a second consecutive stop. Akron’s first shot on this possession was an open three that missed, but no UMass player could grab the ball, instead deflecting it out to remain on defense.
Off the ensuing inbound, Shammah Scott went around a screen where no Minuteman was waiting for him. This time, the three was pure, digging UMass back into a double-digit hole. Jayden Ndjigue responded with a floater, bringing his team back into a similar position. Now with 2:30 to play, the results were the same: a missed shot leads to an offensive rebound which leads to a Scott made three. The Zips’ lead was at 11, a number too large for the Minutemen to overcome.
“We can’t guard,” Martin said. “It’s not like [Akron] ran some complicated offense. They ball-screen their point guard, our point guard gets sideways, gets behind the ball … we [have] no rim coverage … [guys] get out of the way and reach. It’s unfortunate.”
With both teams sharing season-long shooting numbers above 35% from deep and top-50 tempos nationally, it should come as no surprise that the game was an offensive delight. Points came in bunches as both teams combined to shoot 52% from the floor.
For UMass, the main source of its scoring remained unchanged from Saturday night’s thriller against Coastal Carolina. Both Marcus Banks Jr. and K’Jei Parker tried their hardest to outshoot the elite shooting team, putting up nine made threes.
The pair of guards relied on the same bag of tricks that has worked against many MAC foes this season. With the ball getting fired into their hands on a kickout pass, all it took was a Banks Jr. sidestep or a Parker shot fake to generate an open look. Of course, those moves signify that a defender was on them in the first place. There were other times where good off-ball movement and relocation left a Zip in the dust, making crucial shots that much easier to hit.
Akron got contributions from all over a roster built with serious NIL money, but its star of the show – senior guard Tavari Johnson – delivered once again. The tempo of the Zips’ offense was controlled by their veteran conductor, as the 6-foot Johnson had a keen eye as to when to speed up and slow down play.
When asked to create, the frontrunner for MAC Player of the Year slithered into the teeth of the defense for mid-range looks and spotted up for threes. When the defense keyed in on the point guard, he calmed down and initiated the elite offense that’s been a thorn in nearly every MAC team’s side. The efficient ball movement and screening worked all night for Akron, keeping its opponent at bay.
While both teams finished with impressive offensive numbers, the flow of Friday night’s game couldn’t have been more disjointed. Between challenges and official reviews, it took well over two hours and 20 minutes to get to the final buzzer, with the home crowd’s energy coming and going in waves. A whopping 49 fouls were called between both teams as frustrations mounted within defenses. The Zips were called for 20 fouls to the Minutemen’s 29, but the nature of their fouls led to a much wider 43-17 free throw advantage for the home team.
One of the longest delays in play came shortly into the second half, as a fight for a loose ball spilled over into some extra contact between Akron’s Evan Mahaffey and Banks Jr.. Mahaffey broke free of Banks Jr. initially with a tug of the arm, and when the UMass player approached him, the two players’ arms got tangled up. Mahaffey was ejected from the contest while Banks Jr. was handed a technical foul.
“When you let things get out of hand, that’s what happens when you have two competitive teams,” Martin said. “I feel bad for [Mahaffey], but if things would’ve been handled a certain way, [Mahaffey] never gets ejected.”
There’s only one team ranked above the Zips in the MAC standings, and that’s the Minutemen’s next opponent. The 25-0 No. 23 Miami (OH) RedHawks will enter the Mullins Center on Tuesday, Feb. 17 in hopes of keeping its dream season fully intact. Its game against UMass tips off at 7 p.m. on ESPN+.
Dean Wendel can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @DeanWende1.
