BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Matt McCall was animated on the sideline when he signaled for a timeout early in the second half Saturday.
Just minutes before in the locker room, he had asked his team for more energy and effort in the second half and so far it wasn’t there. UMass entered halftime trailing by seven points and the deficit stretched to as many as 10 before McCall called the timeout.
“I didn’t like our energy, I didn’t like we were just kind of watching balls go up in the air and not chasing them and not trying to play with any toughness or any fight,” McCall said. “We subbed a bunch of guys there then T.J. Weeks got going and the energy level shifted for the course of the game.”
Weeks only scored nine points in the game, but they came in a critical three-minute stretch that flipped the 10-point deficit into a one-point lead. The bench erupted as Weeks’ third 3-pointer fell and the Minutemen regained their mojo.
The barrage from behind the arc sparked UMass to a 62-60 win over Fairfield, just the third true road win for McCall in his tenure.
“When T.J.’s on, we’re on, if you don’t know that yet,” said freshman point guard Sean East, who assisted on all three of Weeks’ baskets. “He can get hot real quick and that’s what we needed out of him.”
UMass (2-0) made six of its first 12 shots to take an early six-point lead, but the offense sputtered and the Minutemen made just three shots in the last 11:40 of the half. The unit lacked movement in the first half, resulting in plenty of contested jump shots.
The rhythm the Minutemen lacked in the first half was evident in the second half with East running the show. The freshman finished with 14 points and seven assists, having a hand in 13 of the 23 baskets UMass made in the game. Under his guidance, UMass shot 61 percent from the field in the final 20 minutes and got all of its star players going.
“Coach told me at a timeout ‘I need you, Sean, I need you to run the team,’” East said. “It kind of rejuvenated me and I just went out there and tried to do it.”
The difference was the Minutemen’s ability to make Tre Mitchell a factor in the game. The freshman center had a team-best eight points in the first half, but his touches were sparse and largely away from the hoop. He was far more aggressive inside in the second half and became a force on the interior as well.
Mitchell finished with 18 points and seven rebounds, both totals that led the team. He said he felt like the way Fairfield was defending him by putting a man between him and the ball, actually helped him because it allowed him to show off his jump shot. He made a long jumper to open the scoring then made two of his four 3-pointers as well.
The outside shooting forced Fairfield to guard him away from the basket and earned him plenty of trips to the foul line as he drew six fouls against him.
“Them fronting me just opened up another aspect of my game,” Mitchell said. “It forced their bigs to guard me on the perimeter and I got them in foul trouble.”
It also helped that McCall rarely substituted in the second half once he found a lineup that was working for him. After calling the early timeout, he inserted Weeks into the game to create a fivesome of sophomore Samba Diallo, East, Mitchell, junior Carl Pierre and Weeks. McCall said that group had practiced well together Friday and that chemistry translated into the game.
That lineup orchestrated the 13-2 run to take the lead after McCall’s timeout in the second half. Then when McCall tried to steal some rest of those guys, Fairfield (0-2) responded with an 8-2 run to reclaim the lead as UMass looked disjointed. Once McCall was able to reunite those five players on the court, he didn’t make any changes until inserting Preston Santos into the game for the final defensive possession.
“We made that run with a certain lineup in the game,” McCall said. “I felt like as the game was going up and down, I wanted to get those guys a blow before the 12-minute media (timeout), but then the game went from 12 minutes to nine minutes and they went on another run when those guys were on the bench. I felt comfortable with that lineup in there, especially late in the game.”