MHERST -- The University of Massachusetts was one of the teams picked in preseason to contend for the Atlantic 10 East Division title. But such hopes were dashed long ago by subpar efforts and disappointing defeats. The final setback came last night, as George Washington ended the Minutemen's campaign with an 85-74 triumph in the first round of the conference tournament.
 Michael Lasme tries to keep up with T.J. Thompson. |
''I'm really proud of my team, to come in this building and finally get a win on the road,'' said GWU coach Karl Hobbs. ''We're starting to show some maturity and come around as a team.''
Hobbs's team will meet Xavier in the second round Thursday afternoon. Xavier beat GWU, 71-70, March 1 on a tip-in at the buzzer by national Player of the Year candidate David West.
The loss was all too typical for the Minutemen (11-18), who lost in the first round of the conference tournament for the first time in 12 years. The Minutemen played well offensively in the first half and shot 57 percent from the floor, but they needed a trey at the buzzer by freshman guard Michael Lasme to tie the game at 45-45.
The Minutemen could not maintain that shooting, falling to 36 percent in the second half. As has been the case many times this season, UMass kept the game close with defense but could not overcome poor shooting.
Anthony Anderson had a team-high 20 points and Jackie Rogers added 19 -- including 11 of his team's first 14 -- to lead the Minutemen, who had lost four of their last five games (the lone win was a forfeit by St. Bonaventure).
''For the first time in a long time, I thought we got worn out,'' said UMass second-year coach Steve Lappas. ''They pressed us. Their goal was to wear us out and they did. We tried to slow them down but we just couldn't.''
George Washington outscored UMass, 9-4, to start the second half and led, 54-49, with 15:31 remaining. To make matters worse for the Minutemen, Rogers, their leading scorer and rebounder, picked up his fourth foul with 14:31 remaining and went to the bench.
The Minutemen managed to keep the game close. With 10:50 left, Omar Williams scored on a pullup jump shot to give the Colonials a 62-55 lead.
 Jackie Rogers tallied 19 points in 25 minutes for the Minutemen. |
UMass cut the deficit to 6 on a 3-pointer by Anderson with 7:49 remaining. A basket by Pops Mensah-Bonsu and a free throw by Hall pushed GWU's advantage back to 9 with 6:33 remaining. After trading baskets, both teams went cold from the floor.
The Minutemen didn't score again until Micah Brand banked in a Lasme miss to make it 74-67 with 2:40 to go.
T.J. Thompson drained a trey with 2:15 left to give the Colonials their biggest lead of the game, 77-67. Rogers then fouled out while guarding Tamal Forchion -- and received a standing ovation -- with 1:32 left. Forchion sank a free throw to give GWU a 78-67 lead.
The Minutemen ended the season with their fewest victories since the 1988-89 campaign. Lappas was left to look to the future.
''I'm disappointed, but I'm not distraught,'' he said. ''We need more guys. We're not good enough. We have guys who are good pieces to the puzzle, but there's no doubt we need more. ''This thing is going to take some work.''
MHERST, Mass., March 10 -- George Washington guard Chris Monroe became the school's all-time leading scorer tonight and led the Colonials to an 85-74 victory over Massachusetts in a first-round Atlantic 10 tournament game.
 Micah Brand wraps a pass around Pops Mensah-Bonsu. |
For the previous 24 hours, Monroe felt awful. He became ill Sunday morning, threw up this morning and missed the Colonials' shoot-around. He decided to play this afternoon, even though he still was sick.
"I just need to get some sleep," Monroe said.
Monroe scored 23 points, breaking Joe Holup's record of 2,226 points set from 1952 to '56. Monroe's final points came with 38 seconds left when his two free throws put the Colonials ahead by 13. He has scored 2,227 points in four seasons.
The Colonials will face top-seeded Xavier in the quarterfinals on Thursday at 12:05 p.m. at the University of Dayton Arena in Dayton, Ohio. In their last meeting on March 1, GW almost upset the then-No. 13 Musketeers. In that game, Xavier's David West scored on a tip-in as time expired. Officials watched the replay to determine if the basket should count. The Colonials celebrated, believing West's shot came after the buzzer, but the officials ruled otherwise to give Xavier a 71-70 victory.
"Our guys were just devastated," GW Coach Karl Hobbs said. "But to me, that was a true blessing to this basketball team."
Mike Hall added 19 points, T.J. Thompson had 16 and Tamal Forchion 14 for the Colonials, who led the entire second half after trailing for most of the first 20 minutes. U-Mass. point guard Anthony Anderson (20 points) and Jackie Rogers (19) led the Minutemen.
During halftime, Hobbs wrote two numbers on the locker room board. Angry with his team's defense, Hobbs pointed out U-Mass. scored 45 points on 57 percent shooting in the first half, mainly against the Colonials' trapping zone.
Hobbs then asked Thompson and junior guard Greg Collucci which defense they wanted to play. They both said man-to-man, an attack they used for nearly the entire half. GW came out much more aggressively and held U-Mass. to 35.5 percent shooting.
"At the end, we showed some maturity," Hobbs said. "The nicest thing is we didn't break down defensively."
nd so it ended, at high speed.
 Anthony Anderson gets past Chris Monroe. Anderson led the Minutemen with 20 points. |
GW senior Chris Monroe led all scorers with 23 points, exactly the number he needed to set a new school record for points in a career, with 2,227.
Monroe, who missed Sunday's film session and Monday's early shoot-around due to sickness, shot 10-for-14 from the free throw line while adding nine rebounds and four assists to his record-setting evening.
"(Monroe) is not allowed to shoot around ever again," said George Washington coach Karl Hobbs, whose team now heads to Dayton, Ohio for the rest of the tournament. GW will take on No. 11 Xavier on Thursday at noon.
The Colonials wore the Minutemen out with a breakneck tempo, as the undermanned UMass squad couldn't keep up with GW down the stretch.
"For the first time this season, I thought we were really worn out," UMass coach Steve Lappas said.
GW jumped out to a quick lead after halftime and never trailed again. Sophomore guard T.J. Thompson hit the clincher, a 3-pointer from the top of the key with 3:28 remaining, to give his team an insurmountable 10-point advantage.
Thompson finished the game with 16 points and five assists in 40 minutes of play.
The Minutemen kept up with the Colonials through the first half, as a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from freshman Mike Lasme evened the score at 45-45 at the break.
But despite the tied game, Lappas wasn't pleased with the way things were going.
"The pace in the first half wasn't good for us," said the former Villanova coach, whose team came into the game averaging 61 points. "The game continued to get played at that pace."
And the Minutemen ran out of gas in the second half, as the Colonials were able to increase their lead little by little while UMass players were short-arming jumphooks on offense and forced to foul when they were beat on defense.
GW freshman Mike Hall set a career-high with 19 points in the contest, while Tamal Forchion chipped in with 14.
Maroon and White senior Jackie Rogers scored 11 points in the first 3:38, as UMass jumped out to an early 14-7 lead. Rogers finished his UMass career with 19 points and seven rebounds. Classmate Micah Brand scored eight points and grabbed six rebounds in his final game in the maroon and white. Both received standing ovations from the crowd upon leaving the court.
Second-year point guard Anthony Anderson led all Minutemen with 20 points.
MHERST - There was still time left, but when Jackie Rogers fouled out with 1 minute, 32 seconds left and the Minutemen trailing by 11, the University of Massachusetts crowd at the Mullins Center knew the game, and the season, was over.
 Anthony Anderson tries to track down the loose ball amongst the Colonial defense. |
The Minutemen finished the season 11-18, their worst record since the 1988-89 season when they were 10-18, while GW (12-16) advanced to the Atlantic 10 quarterfinals and will play No. 10 Xavier, Thursday at noon.
Rogers had 19 points and five rebounds before fouling out of his final career game, while Brand had four points. Anthony Anderson led the Minutemen with 20 points.
Chris Monroe led GW with 23 points and became his school's all-time leading scorer with 2,227 career points. Mike Hall had a career-high 19 points, while T.J. Thompson added 16.
"They kind of pushed it down our throat," Anderson said. "They beat us downcourt every time."
Rogers' bread-and-butter jump hook led the Minutemen out of the gate. He scored 11 of UMass' first 14 points as the home team opened a 14-7 lead, 3:39 into the game.
The Minutemen extended their advantage to 25-17 with 11:01 left as they took advantage of Monroe's inability to get open early.
Once the Colonials' star guard found the range, though, he took over the game. He scored all the points in a 8-3 run that tied the game at 36-36 with 4:48 left. GW briefly took the lead before Mike Lasme's 3-pointer beat the buzzer for a 45-45 halftime tie.
The Colonials' relentless pressure seemed to tire out the Minutemen after intermission and they began doubling the post, slowing UMass' inside game.
  Micah Brand couldn't bear to watch the curtain come down on his college playing career. |
Monroe hit two free throws to open the half and led the rest of the way. UMass stayed close for the first 10 minutes before GW pulled away.
"He's a good player," Lappas said. "He plays his head off."
Brand tossed a towel over his head on the UMass bench and appeared to have been crying prior to the postgame press conference, where he reflected on his four years.
"I learned a lot, and I'm going to take that with me in the future," he said. "It's been a great experience for me here. I would like it to have continued a little longer."
Anderson said the offseason was critical to the team being better next year.
"There's a lot that we have to," Anderson said. "Everybody has to be dedicated."
Matt Vautour can be reached at [email protected].
he programs and the scoreboard said that the University of Massachusetts played in the Atlantic 10 men's basketball tournament this year.
It sure didn't feel like it.
If Monday night's game at the Mullins Center was any indication, this year's format of playing the first round of the A-10 Tournament at campus sites was a bad idea.
For the first time since 1988, the Atlantic 10 moved the bulk of its postseason tournament out of Philadelphia. The league hoped the relocation to Dayton would attract more fans and consequently more revenue.
The Flyers annually outdraw the rest of the league and have sold out the NCAA Tournament Play-In Game each of the last two years. The atmosphere there promised to be better than the grime and quiet provided by the run-down Philadelphia Spectrum, which hasn't hosted a good event since Balboa-Creed I.
Some people objected. They argued that allowing a very good Dayton team to play the tournament on its own floor gave the Flyers an unfair edge. But the league could fairly contend that the increased revenue and interest generated by the move outweighed the potential for giving one team an advantage.
The Atlantic 10 should have moved its tournament back to the Palestra, the history-filled Philadelphia fieldhouse that the league used to sell out every year. But barring that, going to Dayton at least had some logic to it.
Somewhere in its tinkering, the league powers went too far.
All 12 teams should be in Dayton. For a league that wants to sit at the table with upper-level leagues, this move looks pretty smalltime. Nobody seems to benefit from it.
UMass coach Steve Lappas, who disagreed with the format prior to the loss, felt even stronger afterward.
 Even the home-court advantage couldn't help Lappas and the Minutemen. |
"This way is like you're not even in the tournament. I would have rather played this game in Dayton. It feels like we didn't get in."
Not making it to Dayton hurts a school's image and its recruiting. Fans of somebody, like Duquesne, who might have made the drive to Dayton to take in at least one day of basketball, can't even plan ahead. For fans further away, who's going to buy a plane ticket to cheer their school on without being sure it's going to make it?
These are the things the league should be looking out for.
Plus, players learn from playing in the tournament atmosphere. Teams with a lot of young players would benefit just from being in the environment.
There was no "March-Madness" feel to Monday's game whatsoever. Instead, it felt more like a play-in game, which it more or less was.
Just 2,420 people showed up for the game, the second smallest crowd ever in the Mullins Center. Even if this game was played at noon on Wednesday, it's hard to imagine it wouldn't have drawn well more than that at UD Arena.
The tournament is back in Dayton next year. Hopefully the whole thing.
Matt Vautour can be reached at [email protected].
| George Washington Colonials (W5) | 85 |
| Massachusetts Minutemen (E4) | 74 |
| Atlantic 10 Tournament, First Round at the Mullins Center | |
Official Basketball Box Score
George Washington vs Massachusetts
03/10/03 7:00 p.m. at Amherst, MA (Mullins Center)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VISITORS: George Washington (12-16)
TOT-FG 3-PT REBOUNDS
## Player Name FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF TP A TO BLK S MIN
03 HALL,Mike........... f 5-7 2-3 7-9 1 6 7 0 19 1 0 1 2 37
44 FORCHION,Tamal...... f 5-11 0-0 4-9 2 1 3 4 14 0 4 1 3 26
21 MENSAH-BONSU,Pops... c 2-5 0-0 4-6 2 5 7 4 8 0 1 0 0 22
04 MONROE,Chris........ g 5-9 3-7 10-14 1 8 9 4 23 4 3 0 0 38
05 THOMPSON,T.J........ g 5-8 4-6 2-2 1 1 2 3 16 5 2 0 3 40
01 WILLIAMS,Omar....... 1-4 0-0 3-4 1 3 4 4 5 4 2 0 1 20
13 KIREEV,Alexander.... 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
23 COWAN,Jaz........... 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
34 COLLUCCI,Greg....... 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3
42 AKINGBADE,Dokun..... 0-1 0-0 0-0 1 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 12
TEAM................
Totals.............. 23-45 9-16 30-44 9 25 34 19 85 14 12 2 10 200
TOTAL FG% 1st Half: 13-24 54.2% 2nd Half: 10-21 47.6% Game: 51.1% DEADB 3-Pt. FG% 1st Half: 5-8 62.5% 2nd Half: 4-8 50.0% Game: 56.3% REBS F Throw % 1st Half: 14-17 82.4% 2nd Half: 16-27 59.3% Game: 68.2% 6,1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOME TEAM: Massachusetts (11-18)
TOT-FG 3-PT REBOUNDS
## Player Name FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF TP A TO BLK S MIN
02 ROGERS,Jackie....... f 7-9 0-0 5-6 3 2 5 5 19 1 3 0 2 25
22 VIGGIANO,Jeff....... f 3-6 1-4 0-1 0 3 3 5 7 2 2 0 1 36
04 LEE,Gabe............ c 0-1 0-0 2-2 1 1 2 3 2 1 0 3 1 17
01 LASME,Michael....... g 3-12 2-10 0-0 0 1 1 2 8 5 3 0 0 31
12 ANDERSON,Anthony.... g 6-15 4-10 4-6 1 3 4 2 20 4 3 1 0 37
00 MARTIN,Brennan...... 2-3 2-3 0-0 0 2 2 2 6 0 0 0 0 10
14 KOTARIDIS,Paco...... 0-1 0-1 0-0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
20 ONUORA,Arthur....... 0-1 0-1 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
40 BRAND,Micah......... 4-7 0-2 0-3 2 4 6 4 8 0 2 0 1 26
50 COX,Marcus.......... 2-4 0-0 0-2 3 1 4 3 4 1 1 0 0 16
TEAM................ 2 1 3
Totals.............. 27-59 9-31 11-20 13 18 31 26 74 15 14 4 5 200
TOTAL FG% 1st Half: 16-28 57.1% 2nd Half: 11-31 35.5% Game: 45.8% DEADB 3-Pt. FG% 1st Half: 7-14 50.0% 2nd Half: 2-17 11.8% Game: 29.0% REBS F Throw % 1st Half: 6-8 75.0% 2nd Half: 5-12 41.7% Game: 55.0% 2,3
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Officials: Frank Scagliotta, Reggie Greenwood, Joe DeMayo Technical fouls: George Washington-None. Massachusetts-None. Attendance: 2420 Score by Periods 1st 2nd Total George Washington............. 45 40 - 85 Massachusetts................. 45 29 - 74