AMHERST — In the first 10 games of the season, each of UMass’ much-celebrated freshman had at least one game where he displayed the potential that made people excited about his arrival.
But on Saturday, the group displayed what they’re capable of together. The five rookies combined for 65 points as the Minutemen pulled away from Kennesaw State, 95-77, at the Mullins Center.
UMass coach Derek Kellogg had been concerned how the freshmen would handle playing a game in the midst of finals for the first time, but they didn’t seem affected.
Luwane Pipkins shook off his shooting slump in loud fashion. He tied the UMass single-game record with eight 3-pointers, including four straight in the first half, and finished with 27 points.
“DK told me to shoot the ball,” Pipkins said. “That’s what I did tonight. Eight 3s put me in the record books.”
DeJon Jarreau took a big step toward playing the way he had before his foot injury sideline him briefly. A good start was stunted in the first half by foul trouble, but he regained his swagger in the second half and finished with 17 points, five assists and two blocked shots.
“Deeky started looking like Deeky again,” Kellogg said of Jarreau. “He was starting to do some good stuff at both ends.”
Jarreau agreed.
“In that second half I felt like myself when I saw that ball go through the hoop,” Jarreau said. “It just all came back.”
Jarreau augmented his status as a fan favorite with two alley-oop passes to fellow freshmen Brison Greshman and Ty Flowers, and his one-handed dunk driving the right baseline brought the snow-shrunk crowd of 1,758 to its feet.
“Whenever I see that lane I’m going to take off. When I came off that spin, I saw the lane and the rest is history,” Jarreau said.
After Tuesday’s nail-biting win over North Carolina A&T, Kellogg said that freshmen forwards Flowers, Chris Baldwin and Gresham, who barely saw the floor in that game, deserved to play more. They rewarded him for doing so. Flowers had 10 points. Gresham had six points, eight rebounds and three blocked shots in a career-high 21 minutes. Baldwin added six points and five rebounds that sparked UMass in the first half.
Kellogg expects more going forward.
“My expectation for these guys is even higher than maybe even they understand,” he said.
The Minutemen made 12 of 24 3-pointers and shot 38-for-73 (52.1 percent) from the floor.
UMass led for most of the game, but Kennesaw’s Kendrick Ray didn’t let the Minutemen pull away and finished with 35 points. He sank two free throws with 5:26 left to cut the deficit to 80-71 and then appeared to run out of gas. Gresham dunked back a Pipkins miss to start a 7-0 run that ballooned into a game-ending 15-6 surge.
“That was a nice second half,” Kellogg said. “All in all we did a nice job of closing out the game. It was nice to see the basketball go through the hoop.”
The Minutemen played the final 3:08 with five freshmen on the floor.
UMass (8-3) hosts Rider at 7 p.m. Thursday before breaking for Christmas.
Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage