UMass Looking To Snap Losing Streak vs. Buffalo
The Minutemen are back at the Mullins Center on Saturday, when they'll honor the 1996 Final Four team.
UMass returns to the Mullins Center on Saturday night looking to halt a three-game slide and solidify its position in the MAC standings when it hosts Buffalo at 6 p.m (ESPN+).
The Minutemen enter at 15-12 overall and 6-8 in MAC play, sitting seventh in the league. The top eight teams qualify for the conference tournament. Buffalo is 15-11 overall and 5-8 in conference play, a half game behind UMass in the standings and tied for eighth.
With four regular-season games remaining, Saturday carries significant implications for both teams.
UMass already owns a 68-67 win over Buffalo earlier this season. In that matchup, UMass led by 20 before having to withstand a late charge.
“We know what they do, they know what we do,” UMass head coach Frank Martin said this week. “They’re a good team. They got really good players, really good guards.
“The game there, we started off well. We were up 19 or 20 and before you know it, we’re down five with three minutes ago. And fortunately there we were able to score some baskets and get some stops, which allowed us to regain the lead.”
UMass has dropped three straight games, including Tuesday’s 86-77 loss to unbeaten Miami-Ohio. Despite the recent results, Martin does not believe his team is far off.
“We’ve got to figure out a way to get a win now,” Martin said. “We are not playing that bad.”
Still, Martin knows they have to play better following losses at Coastal and at Akron before the home loss to Miami-Ohio.
“We’ve had three hard games that we could very easily be 3-0, but we’re not,” he said. “We’re 0-3 and this is not the time of year you want to be in these losing streaks.
“You’ve got to figure out a way to get right and just play well against Buffalo.”
The numbers reinforce how narrow the margin has been. UMass has continued to generate offense, knocking down 10 or more three-pointers in each of its last three games and getting balanced scoring from Isaiah Placide, Leonardo Bettiol, Danny Carbuccia and Marcus Banks Jr.
The issue, according to Martin, has been defensive discipline and fouling.
“It’s not like we’re playing bad,” Martin said. “We’ve got to play with a little bit more discipline and the attention to detail and toughness defensively has to be better. It’s not very good. We commit too many fouls and bad fouls.
“The fouls we commit are embarrassing. It’s little grabs and holds and slaps and that’s not good basketball. All we can do is keep preaching, keep showing film, keep trying to help them to see if we can improve in that department so we don’t get outshot 33-16 every time we play on the foul line.”
Buffalo features a backcourt led by Daniel Freitag and Ryan Sabol capable of controlling pace and putting pressure on opposing defenses, something UMass experienced firsthand in the first meeting.
With the standings tight in the middle of the league, a win would create separation between the two teams as they push toward March.
Saturday also carries emotional weight beyond the standings.
UMass will honor the 1995-96 team that advanced to the program’s only Final Four. Members of that group will be in attendance.
“They’re all coming back,” Martin said. “All those guys played in The Cage and had high school metal lockers. And now these guys that are here live the life that they created for them to be able to live in.”
For a program trying to regain momentum, the timing of the tribute is not lost on Martin.
The Minutemen will look to channel that history into urgency, as both the present and postseason positioning hang in the balance Saturday night at the Mullins Center.
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