AMHERST — For a young team, UMass delivered the underdog mantras like veterans.
As the Minutemen headed to the Atlantic 10 Men’s Basketball Tournament in Pittsburgh, they were eager to take a crack at making the history that would come with winning five games in five days.
But after an up-and-down regular season, UMass’ biggest motivation was preventing its season from ending.
“Everybody is undefeated now,” said junior Zach Lewis. “We’re going in with a clean slate, trying to make a nice run. We’ve been saying all year that we have the talent. Now is the time to put it together.”
UMass coach Derek Kellogg thought his team was in a good place mentally for postseason.
“The guys are excited to play. They were engaged in practice,” he said. “We’ve played pretty well at times of late, because the guys are still engaged and ready to go. Part of me wishes we have more time to get it going and continue to improve. We’re starting to get a good identity of who we are. I think we’re in a good place to see if we can play well (tonight) against St. Joe’s.”
The 12th-seeded Minutemen (14-17) will try to extend their season tonight at 6 p.m. against No. 13 Saint Joseph’s (11-19) in the first round at PPG Paints Arena.
“We can still make a run at this,” freshman guard DeJon Jarreau said. “We have to try to string everything together to make this run. We’re the 12 seed. We’re going in with a chip on our shoulder. We can shock the world if we win.”
The Minutemen have a couple of things working in their favor: 1. They’ve already beaten No. 1 Dayton; and 2, they play a large rotation and are less likely to run out of gas.
But the things working against them will be hard to overcome. Winning five-games and an automatic bid over five days is incredibly rare. UMass hasn’t stayed consistent from game to game very often. Doing it five days in a row would require a sizable step.
The gold standard for such a run is the 2011 UConn Huskies. Kemba Walker began his path to immortality by leading the Huskies to five wins in five days in the Big East Tournament. It’s never happened in the A-10, but the league has only had five rounds for three years before this tourney.
Only twice has a team won even four games in four days for a title, as Xavier pulled it off in 2004 and 2006.
This is UMass’ first time in what is now called the first round, as the tournament has stretched to five days since the league has expanded past 12 teams.
This is the third year of 14 teams. No 12 seeds are 1-1 against No. 13s in the first round.
Since 2006 when the league stopped using a two six-team divisions, No. 12 seeds have gone 3-11. Only Saint Joseph’s in 2011 has advanced to the semifinals.
The Minutemen will try to beat Saint Joseph’s for a third time this season. Hawks sophomore point guard Lamarr Kimble, who suffered a season-ending injury in the last game against UMass, will not be in the lineup.
“It’s hard to beat a team three times,” Lewis said. “It’s going to be a challenge.”
PLAYING IN PITTSBURGH — This is not the league’s first tournament in the Steel City. Pittsburgh hosted the event when the University of Pittsburgh was still in the league from 1978-1982.
But the league, then the Eastern 8, and its tournament have changed considerably since.
PPG Arena will host the event after four years at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. Barclays is hosting the ACC in 2017 and 2018 so the A-10 will play in Pittsburgh this season and Washington D.C. in 2018 before returning the to the Brooklyn Nets home in 2019.
PPG is the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins’ home, which opened in 2010.
One advantage as far as attendance is that the tournament is considerably closer to Dayton, which has the league’s fan base that’s most likely to travel to a conference tournament. Traveling from the front door of UD Arena to the entrance of PPG Paints Arena is just 258 miles.
According to GoogleMaps, both the Barclays Center and PPG Paints Arena are exactly 335 miles from Richmond, home of both VCU and Richmond. So fans of the Spiders, and especially the Rams, who have traveled well in the past, don’t have to go any further.