Story from the Mass paper

[Dane Pound]

Looks like they Minutemen fans expected a blowout yesterday and Lappas was disappointed with their effort.

 

 

Minutemen cruise to win

 

University of Massachusetts wasn't particularly impressive, but it now awaits No. 1 Connecticut.

 

 

12/29/2003

 

 

By RON CHIMELIS Staff writer

rchimelis@repub.com

 

 

 

AMHERST - The best part of yesterday's men's basketball game between the University of Massachusetts and Albany is that with tomorrow's game against Connecticut looming, it won't linger in the team's memory bank for long.

Just as well.

 

"This shouldn't be a hard game to forget," UMass forward Jeff Viggiano said after the Minutemen's 82-66 victory at the Mullins Center. "I think we all expected to blow them out by 25 or 30. They kept battling, so give them credit, but we didn't do what we were capable of doing."

 

Impressive or not, the victory was never in doubt. It was the Minutemen's third straight win, and at 5-4, UMass is above .500 for the first time since Jan. 26, 2002.

 

Fresh from claiming his third Atlantic 10 rookie of the week honor this season, UMass forward Rashaun Freeman scored 22 points with 10 rebounds - his fourth double-double. Freeman shot 10 for 13, and in his last two games, he's 19 for 25.

 

 

That didn't send him home smiling, though.

 

 

"I didn't do the things today that I need to do to improve my game," said the 6-foot-8 first-year sophomore, who grew up near the Albany campus in Schenectady, N.Y. "I didn't box out, and I really have to work on that. There's no way they should have gotten that many rebounds."

 

 

Albany (2-6) is depleted by injuries, and showed up with only eight players, three of whom were walk-ons. After center Chris Wyatt picked up two quick fouls, the Great Danes relied on five players for nearly the entire first half.

 

 

Yet Albany outrebounded UMass 34-33, with 6-6 junior Aquawasi St. Hillaire grabbing 12 boards.

 

 

"Our rebounding was horrendous," UMass coach Steve Lappas said. "I told the guys, if St. Hillaire can get six offensive boards, how many are (UConn center) Emeka Okafor going to get?"

 

 

UMass vaulted to a 21-5 lead, only to see Albany rally with a 15-4 run. It was 41-25 at halftime, and the lead fluctuated between 11 and 19 in the second half, a yawner all the way.

 

 

"We're happy we're over .500," Freeman said. "But we're not satisfied."

 

 

UMass guards Maurice Maxwell and Artie Bowers had been expected to start, but came off the bench as punishment for showing up a few minutes late to the first post-Christmas practice. Forward Brennan Martin didn't play at all, but Lappas said it wasn't a punitive decision.

 

 

"He had a family issue in California, and got back Saturday night," Lappas said. "I'm not mad at him at all, but he wasn't around for the preparation for this game, so he couldn't play."

 

 

The lineup shuffling gave Chris Chadwick his first start. The junior college transfer had six points and career highs in assists (7) and minutes (27).

 

 

"I feel like I'm doing better," the junior guard said. "Coach is letting me play off the ball more, where I can do more things."

 

 

Point guard Anthony Anderson tied his career high with nine assists, but shot only 2 for 9, and is 11 for 40 in his last four games.

 

 

Other than the rebounding, Lappas downplayed the significance of this less-than-inspired UMass performance. He said he didn't get really upset until the end of the game, the Minutemen's last before tomorrow's monstrous test in Hartford against UConn, the nation's No. 1-ranked team.

 

 

"There's absolutely no correlation between this game and Tuesday," he said. "We did what we had to do, and the game was never in doubt. I've been in a lot of these types of games, and sometimes you win by 35, and sometimes it's 15 the whole way. We got a little complacent, and that can happen."

 

 

GOOD SHOWING: UMass received some good news Saturday night from a high school tournament in Rehoboth, Del., where signed recruit Olivier Lamoureux scored 16 points with six rebounds against Mount Zion (N.C.), a national prep powerhouse. The 6-foot-9 Lamoureux is a senior at Champlain St. Lambert.

 

 

"They do things differently at the prep level in Canada, and he plays a lot of his games against guys who are 22 or 23 years old," Lappas said. "We're very optimistic about him."

Edited December 29, 2003 by Dane Pound