AMHERST — Normally UMass’ defensive game plan can be boiled down to a few simple principles.
Sophomore Samba Diallo will inevitably start the game on the other team’s best player, the Minutemen will switch with everyone except the center when there’s a screen set and there will be a fair dose of pressing involved. When Diallo gets tired or is substituted out of the game, it’s been freshman Kolton Mitchell who has taken over primarily guarding the other team’s best player.
However, Davidson presents a unique challenge to that strategy with the best backcourt in the Atlantic 10. The Wildcats (10-10, 4-4 Atlantic 10) have reigning conference player of the year Jon Axel Gudmundsson and returning all-conference first-teamer Kellan Grady, which will put a lot more pressure on the Minutemen as a whole. UMass (9-12, 3-5) cannot rely on just two players to shut down a backcourt of this caliber and will need everyone to be ready to handle the load at some point.
Mitchell said the most important thing about slowing down good players is being able to stay focused on the play and have a short memory of successes and failures from previous possessions.
“When you’re playing against such a good player, you can’t get ahead of yourself,” Mitchell said. “I got ahead of myself last game when I was guarding (Saint Joseph’s Ryan Daly), I was just getting cocky and he hit me with a nice backdoor, that’s something I don’t get caught on. We just need to stay with what we can do and guard.”
The other challenge Davidson will present at 8 p.m. Saturday in North Carolina is the unpredictability of its offense. UMass coach Matt McCall said he normally can prepare his team for what to expect when opponents run certain plays or are in certain formations. However, there is a level of variability in Davidson’s motion scheme that won’t allow for the Minutemen to know exactly what is coming.
“Normal defensive principles in this game don’t really apply because of their motion, because of how much movement (there is),” McCall said. “As I told our team, you cannot script what’s coming. A lot of teams you play, you can script it; you can say a back screen’s coming here or a pick-and-roll is coming here or they’re doing this. It’s so random in how (Davidson) plays, you’ve got to guard your man, when there’s contact on screens you can switch, but it’s really you’ve got to sit down and guard, you’ve got to be alert.”
STILL NOT 100 PERCENT — Mitchell is earning his first real extended minutes of the season during this current stretch after breaking his hand in UMass’ opener against UMass-Lowell on Nov. 5.
The freshman guard missed the next 12 games while rehabbing the injury, returning in time for Atlantic 10 action, but played less than 10 minutes in four of the next six games. Now he’s been thrust into the starting lineup the past two contests, and Mitchell has found his groove with more playing time to get acclimated to the game.
However, the Fort Myers, Florida, native is still not at 100 percent. The coaches poke fun at him for his awkward landings when taking charges – a habit that’s arisen because he broke his hand taking a charge. He also still isn’t using both hands to generate power on his shots and he’s finding childhood lessons very helpful for the inordinate amount of time he ends on the ground during a game.
“When I shoot, it’s almost like a one-handed shot,” Mitchell said. “It’s all one hand, I can’t use the other one other than to hold it in place. The only other adjustment I’ve had to make is – I fall a lot, I’m on the ground 50 percent of the game – so when I’m driving to the basket, I literally have to tuck-and-roll, I learned that when I was an 8-year-old riding horses.”
THE TRAVEL CURSE — It’s a tired trope surrounding McCall’s tenure at UMass, but one that will continue to arise until the Minutemen actually win a game away from the Mullins Center.
For all intents and purposes UMass is 3-29 in true road games under McCall – the record books will show this season’s loss at St. Bonaventure as a neutral-site game because it was played in Rochester, New York, instead of Olean – and has lost 20 straight A-10 games away from Amherst. Mitchell said the coaches have referred to the lack of success as a “curse” in an attempt to help motivate the young squad.
The trip to Davidson is coming at a good time for the Minutemen, though. They have won back-to-back games while showing the same attributes McCall has stressed are important to winning on the road. The coach said he thought the new confidence is helpful, but that it’s still a different game when that metaphorical punch is on the road with no support coming from the stands.
“The biggest thing in winning on the road is you’ve got to be extremely tough, you’ve got to have mental toughness,” McCall said. “You’ve just got to have that mental toughness that when they make a run and their crowd gets behind them, you respond the right way. We haven’t responded the right way.”
Josh Walfish can be reached at jwalfish@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshWalfishDHG. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage.