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Xavier's Derrick Brown gets this shot off despite some strong-arm tactics from Minuteman Tony Gaffney. (Nancy Palmieri/Associated Press) |
Xavier 77, UMass 65
AMHERST - All season long, University of Massachusetts basketball coach Travis Ford has encouraged his players to be "strong with the ball." Early in the second half yesterday against 23d-ranked Xavier, Ford got his chance to demonstrate.
After point guard Chris Lowe got caught up in the air with all teammates guarded, he flipped a desperation pass that rolled out of bounds right to his coach. Ford picked up the ball, slammed it into the floor, and watched it carom into the stands.
The play - which earned a delay of game warning, rather than a technical foul - defined the frustration of a galling few days for the Minutemen. They entered play last week at 13-4 with 47 votes in the Associated Press poll. With two victories against quality opponents, they likely would have vaulted into the Top 25 for the first time since 1998.
Instead, they scored just 16 points in the first half at Saint Joseph's Wednesday, meaning that not even a spirited comeback could get them over the top in an 81-77 loss.
Yesterday's 77-65 defeat was more of the same. The Minutemen fell behind at the half, 34-23, saw the deficit balloon to as much as 18 after intermission, charged all the way back to 68-63 with just under two minutes left, then ran out of gas.
The Minutemen (13-6, 2-3 Atlantic 10) were outplayed in almost every facet of the game by a Xavier team that has made the NCAA Tournament six of the last seven years. The Musketeers (17-4, 5-1) showed a controlled intensity on offense, led by 5-foot-7-inch point guard Drew Lavender, a candidate for conference Player of the Year.
Lavender scored a team-high 19 points and somehow managed to lead all players in rebounds with nine. He also directed a multi-faceted offense that came in with six players averaging double figures. Yesterday they had four with Lavender joined by Derrick Brown (14), C.J. Anderson (13), and Josh Duncan (10).
"They have a lot of weapons," said Ford. "We've got a couple, and our couple didn't play very well tonight."
Indeed, UMass entered the game as the only team in the nation with two players averaging more than 20 points a game. But Gary Forbes was hounded into a 5-for-15 game from the floor for 16 points, and Ricky Harris was almost completely stifled by Xavier's Stanley Burrell, managing just 7 points on 2-for-8 shooting.
"You're never going to shut someone down completely," said Burrell. "I just really want to make it tough on him, make him take a lot of shots in order to get his average."
Xavier, the top 3-point shooting team in the A-10, struggled from the perimeter, hitting only 4 of 22 treys. It hardly mattered, though, with the relentless defensive intensity, a 41-30 rebounding edge, and Lavender's mastery at the point.
"As well as I've seen, he does a great job of controlling the tempo, controlling the team, controlling himself," said Ford, who back in the early '90s did a fair job of that at the University of Kentucky.
According to Forbes, the Minutemen now find themselves at a crossroads. Emerging from an hour-long team meeting that featured "a lot of heart to heart," Forbes said there is a sense of urgency to prevent a once-promising season from slipping away.
"Our season's about to end," said Forbes. "We've got 11 games left in the regular season, and our back is against the wall. Our next game, the way we play it, has to be like our last game. We've got to play like every game from now on is a championship game."
Etienne Brower, who led all scorers with 22 points, said the Minutemen are perplexed about their poor starts.
"It seems like sometimes we just have a tough time getting out of the gate," said Brower. "When you dig yourself a hole that deep, 15 or 20 points, it's tough to get back. Something's got to give about starting off the games a lot better."
The Minutemen will try to unlock that mystery Wednesday night at Duquesne.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
