AMHERST — Matt McCall was getting poised to call a timeout as Sean East coasted toward the basket for a layup that would have put UMass up by 11 against George Mason on Wednesday.
He knew his team would need to settle down during what should have been a 10-0 run for the Minutemen, and was ready to calm his young players with a big lead on the road. Except East missed the layup and the Patriots hit two free throws on their next possession to start a game-changing 12-2 run of their own. By McCall’s count, the Minutemen missed nine layups in the 73-63 loss to George Mason, and those shots were ultimately the difference in the game.
“From the offensive standpoint, what we were running against George Mason was working,” McCall said. “It was simple, it was stuff that since I’ve been a head coach we’ve always run and we didn’t elaborate on the playbook very much. … We did simplify it a little bit and it helped our guys, but we’ve got to make layups. We’ve got to finish plays, don’t worry about the contact, just go to the square and lay it in.”
Scoring has been an issue for the Minutemen (7-12, 1-5 Atlantic 10) since the start of conference play and they rank 10th in the league at 65.3 points per game. Yet UMass hasn’t hit 65 points in the last four games while averaging just 58.75 ppg, which has resulted in four straight double-digit losses.
The biggest culprit has been a lack of secondary scoring beyond junior guard Carl Pierre and freshman center Tre Mitchell. The pair have combined to average roughly 34 ppg in Atlantic 10 contests and are both shooting better than 45 percent from the floor, but their teammates are shooting 35 percent from the field in conference play.
One player UMass is hoping to jumpstart is sophomore Dibaji Walker, who will play in his eighth game for UMass on Saturday when it hosts Duquesne (15-3, 5-1 Atlantic 10) at 2 p.m. The wing has been inconsistent thus far as he’s tried to acclimate himself to the rotation, but he said he’s starting to feel more comfortable on the floor. The key he said is to continue to play his style of game and not let the struggles affect his shot selection or confidence on offense.
“I’ve got to be aggressive and get my shots up, not shooting at all isn’t going to help the team,” Walker said. “Playing at whatever spot, that’s just one less threat on the court if I’m not looking for my own buckets and looking to score in the offense instead of just being a ball mover and being easy to guard.”
Outside of Mitchell and Pierre, East has been the only other consistent scorer for the Minutemen. He’s averaging 9.3 ppg in conference action, but has been inefficient shooting and been less careful with the ball. After a strong start to the season, East’s assist-to-turnover ratio is negative and McCall said the freshman point guard might be overthinking everything during the game.
East said he knows he needs to be better in the final six weeks of the season than he’s been in the last month, adding he knows he needs to make a bigger impact offensively. He said he just needs to return to what made him successful early in the season, sticking to his personality and not letting the game shift his perspective.
“I just need to just get back to myself and play with a little more emotion and be happy at all times,” East said. “I can’t let plays get to me and (move) on to the next play.”
The start to curing the Minutemen’s offensive woes is finding ways to help Mitchell when the inevitable double team does come at him. UMass has struggled to consistently move around Mitchell in the post to give him options for kick-out passes and the spacing has been off as well.
Walker said the key for UMass is to find ways to complement their two scorers and play better team basketball.
“When the ball goes into Tre, we’ve got to move around him, we’ve got to play off of Tre once we get it inside,” Walker said. “Carl is going to do what he does, he’s going to spot up, shoot, we just need to set good screens for him. At the same time, we’ve got to move as one, it’s all about timing on offense and we need to communicate on offense.”