Martin Talks Much-Needed UMass Win
Minuteman head coach Frank Martin says "losing is not good for the soul."
Frank Martin did not shy away from the weight of the moment following Saturday’s 79–71 win over Ball State, framing the victory as both a necessary reset and a reminder of what his team is capable of when it commits on the defensive end.
For the UMass head coach, the relief was palpable, not because of aesthetics or margin, but because losing had begun to chip away at belief.
“Losing is not good for the soul,” Martin told reporters after the team’s first MAC win. “It’s not good for the soul of the individual and it’s not good for the soul of the collective group.”
UMass entered the game winless in MAC play, a position Martin said can test a young roster’s confidence quickly.
“When you go 0-4 to start league play and you’ve got a brand new team, like 90 percent of us do these years, guys start losing faith in whether we’re good enough to win or the things you do to win,” he said.
Martin made it clear the staff’s focus over the last week had little to do with offense. The Minutemen have scored consistently throughout the season. What had been missing, in his view, was the defense.
“What’s been preventing us from winning has been our defense, not our offense,” Martin said. “So for the last four or five practices, my total emphasis, my voice in practice, has been almost 100 percent about trying to fix our defense.”
That emphasis showed for long stretches, particularly early. Martin acknowledged the team slipped defensively against the Cardinals once the UMass offense got going, but he viewed the overall effort as a step forward.
“We defended pretty good today up until we started making shots,” he said. “Then we start making shots and we stopped defending. But I’m glad we won. The kids deserve that. We’ve been pushing them pretty hard.”
Martin also pushed back on any notion that internal standards have softened during the early conference struggle.
“(UMass AD Ryan Bamford) and the people he answers to didn’t bring me to UMass for us to be 0-whatever in conference play,” he said. “Internally, we have a pressure that we put on each other that what’s happened for the first four conference games is not acceptable.”
While the win snapped the slide, Martin cautioned against viewing it as a turning point in isolation, instead stressing the long view of conference play.
“Conference play is a long haul,” he said.
UMass returns to conference play on Tuesday at Western Michigan with tip-off scheduled for 7 p.m. and streamed on ESPN+.
From a personnel standpoint, Martin highlighted several developments that helped stabilize the effort. Guard Marcus Banks Jr. provided a lift in the second half after dealing with lingering finger issues that affected his shooting rhythm in recent games.
“We thought he had a fractured right index finger after the Bowling Green game,” Martin said. “It’s hard to be a shooter when you can’t flick that finger.”
Martin said Banks had been pressing at times, not out of selfishness but out of urgency.
“He wants to win so bad,” Martin said. “I stopped playing him in the first half because I thought he was pressing. I just needed him to settle down.”
Forward Leonardo Bettiol’s energy also stood out. Martin said the grad senior rediscovered a sense of purpose over the last couple of days, something that translated to his play.
“He played today with a purpose,” Martin said. “It’s hard to play without a purpose. You’ve got to have one.”
Off the bench, guard Isaiah Placide continued his upward trend after early-season disruptions tied to injury. Martin said Placide is beginning to understand the pace and demands of Division I basketball.
“He’s starting to figure it out,” Martin said. “He can shoot. He’s a confident scorer. He gives us a changeup.”
That flexibility has allowed Martin to manage minutes more effectively, particularly with forward Jayden Ndjigue, while also opening the door to additional lineup combinations as the season progresses.
Late-game execution remains an area of emphasis. Martin pointed to a pair of defensive breakdowns in the closing minutes as teaching moments rather than fatal flaws.
“We’ve got to eliminate mistakes,” he said. “If they make plays, they make plays, but we’ve got to eliminate mistakes.”
The win did not erase the frustrations of the past two weeks, nor did Martin suggest it should. Instead, he framed it as a necessary step toward restoring belief inside the locker room.
“We’ve got good dudes in that locker room,” Martin said. “It doesn’t mean I haven’t been on edge. It doesn’t mean they haven’t been on edge. We create an intense internal pressure amongst ourselves.
“I think the best way to describe it is grounding. It gives you a sense of where you came from and who you grew up with.”
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