The new-look UMass men’s basketball team made its long-awaited debut Saturday at the Mullins Center. Nine players left the program before this year, but managing the turnover has become part of the process for coach Matt McCall.
He’s fielded nearly a brand-new team each of his four years.
Seven players transferred out of the program between when he was hired and his debut, which is common when coaching staffs switch. Six players left between his first and second year, and 10 departed after the next season.
“When you’re rebuilding something, there was a lot of turnover right when I got here,” McCall said. “There were a lot of guys that walked out the door and a few stayed.”
With all of those exoduses, McCall had to bring in large groups of freshmen and transfers. UMass added six new players his first year, four his second, eight for last season and another seven this year, including five freshmen.
Seven players put on the maroon and white for the first time in Friday’s 94-79 win over Northeastern. Four of them played at least 15 minutes in the rotation.
“It felt pretty comfortable for everybody from the jump,” UMass sophomore Tre Mitchell said. “We have such good relationships off the court that when we got on the court we were nothing but excited.”
Freshman guard Javohn Garcia scored 23 points on 9 of 13 shooting, including 2 of 3 on 3-pointers, in 33 minutes.
“We know how talented he is. Did I envision him playing 33 minutes tonight? Not going into the game,” McCall said. “But when something’s working, you’ve got to stick with it.”
McCall has learned to acclimate, adjust and adapt to shifting rosters and integrating new pieces.
“The biggest thing with the turnover is walking into a situation and evaluating where we are and where we were as a program,” he said. “We’ll take a step back and say where are we and what do we need?”
McCall runs a pressing system that thrives in transition. The Minutemen’s roster was not ideally suited for that when he arrived. He’s focused on athletic players that bring versatile skill sets and can play multiple positions. There’s only three players on the roster 6-foot-9 or taller, and none of them lumber in the post.
UMass experienced the growing pains of finding the right players for both the system and the program. The Minutemen won 13 games in McCall’s first year before dropping to 11 in 2018-19. They went 14-17 last season before the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the Atlantic 10 tournament.
“One of the things I learned early here and going through two very challenging years was how does our roster look? Where are the majority of our guys from?” McCall said.
The roster McCall inherited in 2017 featured players from places like Mississippi, Chicago and New Jersey. Over the intervening years, he and his staff have focused on recruiting in their backyard. Only one member of the 2020-21 roster didn’t grow up or attend prep school in New England.
“That’s an excitement level of being at UMass (when you’re from the area),” McCall said. “We want to make sure we’re bringing in the right guys that want to be here and are invested in being here. That’s the way we’ve shifted the direction of this program, and we’ve got to continue to look at that.”
He also took a more diligent approach to recruiting. Though he relies on his assistants throughout the process, McCall developed more of an interest in evaluating players on a deeper level.
“Seeing guys multiple times. How are they reacting when things are going well? How are they reacting when things aren’t going well?” he said. “Me as a head coach, really diving into the evaluation piece and not taking someone off of film or this person said this or we saw him once and he was really good, diving more into that so we’re getting closer to that batting 1,000. As a young head coach that’s something that I’ve really learned.”
UMass has been on the floor since August working together before finally playing a game. That time allowed the team’s ingredients to simmer and blend together well when it was time to eat.
“We can play different lineups, a lot of different combinations,” McCall said. “There’s not a lot of dropoff in terms of our bench. We’re deep, and I think we showed that.”
Kyle Grabowski can be reached at kgrabowski@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @kylegrbwsk.