Minutemen foul things up at the finish

UMass blows 5-point lead in final minute

AMHERST - As Welcome Home parties go, this one needs to be filed under "Disaster, Unmitigated."

First-year University of Massachusetts coach Derek Kellogg returned to the Mullins Center last night, a building that had been his personal victory stand back in his playing days in the 1990s. A happy homecoming seemingly had been put on a platter, with UMass taking on a young Jacksonville State team that went 7-22 a year ago. In the teams' only previous meeting in Alabama two years ago, UMass had won by 31.

But the platter came crashing down on the Mullins parquet before a stunned crowd of 4,821, as UMass collapsed at the finish line in a 75-74 loss.

For the 35-year-old Kellogg, the defeat brought on a devastating déjà vu - not of the 30-1 record he was part of at Mullins as a player under John Calipari, but of the meltdown at the end of last year's national title game. As an assistant under Calipari with Memphis, Kellogg watched his team miss key free throws in regulation and fall to Kansas in overtime in a near-miss for the ages.

"Well, that was very reminiscent of something that happened to me not too long ago," said Kellogg. "It was almost the perfect storm of everything that could go wrong in a short period of time did."

UMass (1-3) had scrapped back against surprisingly feisty Jacksonville State (3-1) to take a 74-69 lead with 43 seconds left on a twisting layup by senior point guard Chris Lowe (20 points, 5 assists, 4 turnovers).

After a missed layup by the Gamecocks' Brandon Crawford, UMass appeared to be home free when senior Tony Gaffney was fouled with 29 seconds remaining. Then everything began to unravel.

Gaffney, who had sparkled all night (20 points, 13 rebounds, 8 blocks), missed the front end of the one-and-one.

At the other end, Crawford hit a 3-pointer from the right wing, and - to Kellogg's horror - made it a 4-point play when Lowe committed a foul on the play. That cut it to 74-73 with 22 seconds left.

Ricky Harris, a junior who is probably UMass's best free throw shooter (85.7 percent coming in), got fouled a second later. When he front-ended the free throw, the die was cast.

Jacksonville State elected not to call a timeout, and gritty point guard Jonathan Toles (team-high 18 points) barreled into the lane and lofted up a leaner. The ball bounced off the rim and in for a 75-74 lead with 8.3 seconds remaining.

After a timeout, UMass tried to go the length of the court. Lowe sprinted up and got the ball out to Anthony Gurley on the right wing, but Gurley's 3-point bid bounded off the rim. Lowe got the rebound and tried to force up a shot at the buzzer, but it didn't come close.

The loss left the UMass veterans stunned.

"From the jump, no one played with that urgency," said Gaffney. "They came in here and outworked us and outscrapped us and outhustled us, and they deserved to win. It's unacceptable."

"We've got to look ourselves in the mirror," said Lowe. "We've got no choice but to play hard. This is a smack in the face."

The loss came on the 15th anniversary of perhaps the program's greatest victory, an overtime win against top-ranked North Carolina, the defending national champion, at Madison Square Garden. That victory, with Kellogg starting at point guard, vaulted UMass onto the national stage.

Last night, the Minutemen appeared to be a long, long way from that place.

Kellogg, composed if bitterly disappointed, indicated that his team will have a chance to be good only if the players learn to play all the way to the finish.

"I think they thought the game was pretty close to being over," he said. "It was pretty close, but it wasn't over."