AMHERST — Sam Breen’s grandmother has noticed how easily her granddaughter has clicked with freshman center Maeve Donnelly.
For the last three games, Breen and Donnelly have started alongside each other, adding a bigger dimension to the Minutewomen’s lineup. For the first 20 games of the season, coach Tory Verdi started four guards around the 6-foot-5 Donnelly, but after a three-game losing streak, he stuck Breen, a 6-1 Penn State transfer, into the starting lineup for the first time.
UMass won its next two games before stumbling Wednesday at George Mason, but the partnership between Breen and Donnelly was evident.
“Maeve and I talk about it a lot, my grandma pointed it out, she texted me, but we’ve been feeling it,” Breen said. “It’s been really nice because I wasn’t playing for half the season so I wasn’t playing with her too much in practice. But since we’ve been playing together, the chemistry has clicked quickly.”
The switch to a two-forward setup has certainly benefited both players on opposite ends of the floor. Donnelly helps ground Breen on defense and gives the Minutewomen one of the more fearsome rim protectors in the conference. And on offense, Breen’s presence has made things easier for Donnelly as the freshman tries to find her touch around the rim in the college game.
She scored seven points in the win over Richmond last week than followed it up with nine points in the win at Davidson on Sunday. They both set season highs for scoring in conference play as UMass has found new ways to utilize Donnelly in the post.
“It’s definitely a lot easier on offense because there’s another large post presence in the game with me,” Donnelly said. “It opens up the lane for me to get more passes off of her and make more post plays together instead of one of us just scoring.”
Verdi said he hoped the change would spark an offensive resurgence in a team that had been struggling to score. The Minutewomen were held to less than 50 points in back-to-back games before the switch and held to 32 percent shooting in the five games preceding the lineup change.
In the three games Breen and Donnelly have started, UMass has shot 36.5 percent from the field and averaged 63.3 points per game.
“It allows us to take advantage of Sam’s scoring ability and Maeve’s size,” Verdi said. “It forces teams to figure out how to defend both of them. If they put their smaller forward on Maeve, we’ll be able to expose them there, and if they put their smaller forward on Sam, we’ll be able to pound the ball inside and get her some touches around the rim.”
Breen has thrived offensive since being inserted into the starting lineup. She’s scored 20 points in each of the three games while shooting 46.9 percent from the field, including 8 of 15 from behind the arc. The junior is now second in the Atlantic 10 in conference scoring at 17.4 points per game.
She only trails Fordham’s Bre Cavanaugh (22.1 points per game), who will lead the Rams (14-8, 6-3 Atlantic 10) into the Mullins Center on Saturday at 1 p.m.
Breen has become a large part of the UMass (16-7, 6-4) offense recently, contributing almost half of the team’s made shots and more than a third of the team’s shot attempts. However, Breen said she isn’t concerned about being such a large part of the offense because her teammates are working hard to get her those chances and she knows they will score more when teams start to put more pressure on her in games.
“My teammates are getting me open, and if I’m attracting defenders, they’re going to be open and they’re going to be able to score,” Breen said. “It’s whoever has the open look. I’m not worry about anyone else scoring, it’s about what the defense is giving us.”
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.