PITTSBURGH — One day after weakening the “It’s hard to beat a team three times in one season” adage, UMass will try to build it back up.
After advancing to the second round of the Atlantic 10 Tournament with a 70-63 win that made the Minutemen 3-0 against Saint Joseph’s in the 2016-17 season, they’ll try to avoid going 0-3 against St. Bonaventure when they play in the second round, Thursday at 2:30 p.m., a game that can be seen on NBCSN.
The Bonnies, who had a bye in the first round, haven’t played since beating UMass, 60-56 Saturday in Olean, New York. SBU also won the first meeting, 89-77, at the Mullins Center on Dec. 30.
Despite the quick turnaround, UMass coach Derek Kellogg thought his team would be ready.
“Luckily, I think we played them (four) days ago. I know they know the game plan,” said Kellogg, who thought the minutes distribution among his players in Wednesday’s game would help them Thursday. “The good thing is we play a lot of players and we’ve done that all year. One guy played 35 (C.J.Anderson), but everybody else was under 30, and sometimes it’s not all bad for a quick turnaround. … I think my team wants to come and play. I think they will be engaged and want to compete and go against a very good St. Bonaventure team who has beaten us twice.”
UMass effectively used a triangle-and-two Saturday to slow St. Bonaventure’s 20-points-per-game scorers Jaylen Adams and Matt Mobley, Saturday. They shot a combined 3-for-18 from the field.
“I think we just have to pay constant attention to those two. They average 40 points a game, they get to the free throw line, they make 3s and they score in transition; and are about as tough a duo, not only in our league, but college basketball for the production they put up,” Kellogg said. “I think when they have the ball, everybody is on high alert. We have to pay attention and make them drive into the guts of our defense.”
Minuteman freshman guard DeJon Jarreau said the lessons in preparing for Saturday’s game at St. Bonaventure were still fresh.
“Yeah it’s good because we just played them so the time we had to practice for them, we just worked on triangle-and-two and box-and-one, things we can do against Jalen Adams and Mobley because they’re the best players on that team,” he said. “If we stop them, I think we’ll be in good shape.”
JARREAU INJURY — Jarreau played just four first-half minutes after taking an elbow to his left cheek. He smiled touching the bandage over it after the game.
“It’s a war wound,” he said. “We’re fighting a war out there.”
He returned in the second half and finished with 3 points, 4 assists and no turnovers in 13 minutes.
UMASS IN ATLANTIC 10 TOURNAMENT — Tuesday’s win improves UMass to 37-35 all time in 41 appearances in Atlantic 10 tournament play.
They’ve now won four straight against St. Joe’s in conference tournament action and are 4-1 all-time against the Hawks.
UMass is 3-1 all time against St. Bonaventure.
MILESTONES — Zach Lewis earned his 1,000th career point, which includes 717 in two seasons at Canisius before transferring to UMass.
With Minuteman all-time leading scorer and Pittsburgh native Jim McCoy in attendance, Donte Clark moved into 23rd all-time on UMass’ career list with 1,231 points, passing Donta Bright.