UNCASVILLE, Conn. — Tre Mitchell spun his way through a double team and made a layup through contact to send Sunday’s game to a media timeout.
The UMass freshman completed the three-point play with a free throw out of the break and the Minutemen led by five with roughly 11 minutes left in the game. What transpired after that foul shot fell through the net was the difference in the game.
St. John’s responded with a 13-0 run that lasted a little less than two and a half minutes to take the lead. And as UMass struggled to rediscover its offensive flow, the game slipped further away from the Minutemen. They made just two shots after Mitchell’s and-one as the Red Storm swarmed the Minutemen for a 78-63 victory in the consolation game of the Air Force Reserve Basketball Hall of Fame Tip-Off at the Mohegan Sun Arena.
“Our youth showed at times today in the sense of not responding the right way,” UMass coach Matt McCall said. “In certain situations, you’d like to have a timeout but we didn’t have any to stop the run, stop the bleeding a little bit because we burned too many in the first half.”
UMass (5-2) called two timeouts in the first half to protect possession when diving after loose-ball rebounds, and it did handcuff McCall. He used the first of his two timeouts remaining after the Red Storm (5-2) scored the first eight points of their 13-0 run, but it didn’t seem to settle down his team too much.
The Minutemen missed 16 of their final 18 attempts from the floor and only scored 11 points in the final 10 minutes, 54 seconds. Eventually the lack of offensive success started to distract from the effort on the defensive end. St. John’s collected eight offensive rebounds in the last 10 minutes while UMass secured just four defensive rebounds. The Red Storm converted on all four possessions they extended to help build up the lead over the reeling Minutemen.
“We were completely consumed on the offensive end of the floor and we gave up offensive rebounds … and we just didn’t block out,” McCall said. “In the first half – and I told our team this – we did a great job blocking out almost to the point where we had some over the back calls. We did a tremendous job blocking out and we got away from that, especially as the game went on in the second half, we completely got away from it.”
One of the main reasons UMass wasn’t able to restart its offense was how much attention Mitchell was garnering on the interior. The Minutemen kept trying to feed their freshman center and let him be the distributor, but St. John’s made a concerted effort to take No. 33 out of the game.
They sent multiple defenders at him every time he touched the ball and kept swiping and poking the ball away from Mitchell. Although Mitchell still finished with his first career double-double – 14 points and 12 rebounds – he almost made it a triple-double in a bad way with eight turnovers. UMass also made three more turnovers on attempted passes inside to Mitchell that St. John’s was able to swat away.
“They were just triple teaming me,” Mitchell said. “It’s pretty blunt, everybody saw it, I was getting triple teamed from the jump.”
UMass finished with 17 turnovers and they led to 23 points for St. John’s. But what frustrated McCall more was the 32 fast-break points the Red Storm scored, especially since the Minutemen were only able to score six in transition.
St. John’s appeared to pull away in the first half as it built up an eight-point lead midway through the stanza. The Red Storm’s formula for early success mirrored their second-half revival – rebounding, denying Mitchell the ball and effort plays – but unlike in the second half, UMass had an answer in the opening 20 minutes.
The Minutemen went on a 13-3 run in the latter stages of the first half to reverse a 28-20 deficit with T.J. Weeks and Mitchell combining for 10 of those points. Weeks scored 17 of his team-high 19 points in the first half, but showed improvement on the defensive end of the floor with two steals and three key rebounds in the half.
“Towards the end, we started to finally play hard and that’s why we were able to get a lead there and extend the lead,” McCall said.
The captain of the extra effort in the first half, though, went to Preston Santos, who was all over the floor in a good way for the Minutemen. The freshman played 10 minutes in the first half and finished with three offensive rebounds, a steal and four points, but it was his overall demeanor that changed the flow for UMass. He made several other hustle plays that don’t appear in the stat sheet, including taking a charge, and sparked the Minutemen with his play.
“When he came in, he brought that energy,” Weeks said. “At the top of the press, he got deflections for easy steals. He really brought his energy and that’s how we got the lead in the first half.”