Game 14, 2023-24: at Dayton (1/7)

[WillHerndonFan]

Even though we lost tonight, this was a great test for our team on the road against the best team in the A10 and a top 25 team. All of the players will be better for it going forward. That being said, our overall guard play was atrocious today even though Diggins and Curry had a few nice plays. We take it to Grant and Clark of Duquesne yet we can’t do anything against Dayton’s backcourt as we couldn’t drive or shoot. The Crohen combo kept us in the game with 33 points and 23 rebounds plus Hankins 6 points/5 rebounds accounted for 65% of our points. In the end, we may see this team again in the A10 tournament, hopefully in the semi or finals and I think we can beat this team. Here is my player Grades/summary:

Cohen: B+: Got his Mojo back and Grinded it out from beginning to end against a future NBA player in Holmes.
Cross: A: Slow first half, awesome 2nd. If Holmes wasn’t around, you might be talking about Cross as the Player of the Year at this point.
Hankins-Sanford: A-: This guy needs to play more as he consistently scores, rebounds,and plays hard in his limited minutes.
Thompson: D: Definitely off his game today with 0 points, but he has proven he will rebound from a bad game.
Diggins: C-: a few good drives, but his 4-17 shooting was about as bad as it gets.
Curry: B: Played well on the road and hopefully this is a sign that he can be the reliable #1 guard off the bench.
Worthy: C: Not much to say as you hope this kid can get back some confidence he had earlier in the year.
Davis: C-: Looked lost out there as we were all hoping maybe this kid could have a WVU type game.
Frank: B+: Really can’t blame Frank for the poor shooting as players need to make shots, and I appreciate the fact that Frank keeps his players in the game (grinding it out) when they are struggling. Under McCall or some of our other post-Calipari coaches, we would have thrown in the towel and been blown out by 30. You know Frank wants another matchup against Dayton in the A10 Tournament!

[InnervisionsUMASS]

They could have folded at multiple moments during this one, but they kept fighting. There's a lot to build off of from this one.


Dayton hit a ton of 3, but I actually thought our defensive scheme and play was pretty good outside of those 3s falling. And you have to be impressed by the offensive rebounding. Sure, I'd have liked to see more shots fall, but you cannot say enough about the effort this team puts in.

[Worcester_To_Amherst]

They played well enough to beat the best team in the league on the road, with the exception of the very important part of hitting shots.

Any other UMass team of the past few years loses that game by 20 with a shooting performance like that.

Team will need outside shooting from Diggins, Curry, or Davis to reach potential. Diggins has been good this year besides yesterday. Excited to see the rest of the year.

[Plano Minuteman]

Even though we lost tonight, this was a great test for our team on the road against the best team in the A10 and a top 25 team. All of the players will be better for it going forward. That being said, our overall guard play was atrocious today even though Diggins and Curry had a few nice plays. We take it to Grant and Clark of Duquesne yet we can’t do anything against Dayton’s backcourt as we couldn’t drive or shoot. The Crohen combo kept us in the game with 33 points and 23 rebounds plus Hankins 6 points/5 rebounds accounted for 65% of our points. In the end, we may see this team again in the A10 tournament, hopefully in the semi or finals and I think we can beat this team. Here is my player Grades/summary:

Cohen: B+: Got his Mojo back and Grinded it out from beginning to end against a future NBA player in Holmes.
Cross: A: Slow first half, awesome 2nd. If Holmes wasn’t around, you might be talking about Cross as the Player of the Year at this point.
Hankins-Sanford: A-: This guy needs to play more as he consistently scores, rebounds,and plays hard in his limited minutes.
Thompson: D: Definitely off his game today with 0 points, but he has proven he will rebound from a bad game.
Diggins: C-: a few good drives, but his 4-17 shooting was about as bad as it gets.
Curry: B: Played well on the road and hopefully this is a sign that he can be the reliable #1 guard off the bench.
Worthy: C: Not much to say as you hope this kid can get back some confidence he had earlier in the year.
Davis: C-: Looked lost out there as we were all hoping maybe this kid could have a WVU type game.
Frank: B+: Really can’t blame Frank for the poor shooting as players need to make shots, and I appreciate the fact that Frank keeps his players in the game (grinding it out) when they are struggling. Under McCall or some of our other post-Calipari coaches, we would have thrown in the towel and been blown out by 30. You know Frank wants another matchup against Dayton in the A10 Tournament!

Frontcourt was pretty awesome. Ndjigue a B, maybe? Made a lot of errors but still contributed greatly to the comeback.

Even though Davis's 5 minutes in the 1st half were atrocious, I wish he would've been able to at least get in the 2nd half, especially once Dayton went zone and no one was hitting an outside shot.

Definitely felt that Curry's 15 minutes were louder than Thompson's 25. Curry missed a lot and all, but at least he was aggressive. Thompson was pretty invisible on the offensive end.

I guess Diggins is about right at C-. No assists and 0-10 from 3. His D and boards and the occasional drive to the hoop kept him in.

Hope they continue to play this hard every night, if so, it'll definitely pay off in the wins column. They definitely had the 'refuse to lose' type attitude out there that I love to see. Totally agree with the comment about a McCall team being blown out by 30 in this one. They would've given up.

[eldonabe]

I would definitely call that a building block game.

They need to come out and put the wood to LaSalle. The explorers has a fat record built on +200 and +300 cupcakes and ZERO wins against sub 200 teams.

I am not saying they need to win by 20, but they should come and get a good lead and then keep it. Do that, and you could talk me into a 11-12 win conference showing.

[Floyd]

With Keon and Rahsool struggling a bit yesterday, I would have liked to see Worthy get a little more time. Kid is a good defender, and he gets in the lane pretty often when he's in there. Strong enough to take the contact, and not afraid to rebound. I understand Frank using his 2 more experienced guards, but both were off yesterday. Worthy can play

[natwam2547]

Sure you'd even take 2-9 from 3 for Diggins, but how many of his looks were clean? Dayton plays good D and mucks it up a bit. I agree with the point about using Cross more in the post. There was one opportunity for Cohen to get him the ball in a good position late and he swung it back out to the perimeter which was frustrating. Jayden also had an open lane for a 4 footer and locked up. They were a little too cautious on the offensive side. Other than that, they played great. Great effort. Years past, that 12 point lead balloons to 20 by the 12 minute mark. It went the other way which was nice to see. Like someone said, hopefully this is a building block and they aren't too down on themselves. Maybe this is their 2001 regular season Pats vs. Rams matchup proving they can go toe-to-toe.

[WillHerndonFan]

Even though we lost tonight, this was a great test for our team on the road against the best team in the A10 and a top 25 team. All of the players will be better for it going forward. That being said, our overall guard play was atrocious today even though Diggins and Curry had a few nice plays. We take it to Grant and Clark of Duquesne yet we can’t do anything against Dayton’s backcourt as we couldn’t drive or shoot. The Crohen combo kept us in the game with 33 points and 23 rebounds plus Hankins 6 points/5 rebounds accounted for 65% of our points. In the end, we may see this team again in the A10 tournament, hopefully in the semi or finals and I think we can beat this team. Here is my player Grades/summary:

Cohen: B+: Got his Mojo back and Grinded it out from beginning to end against a future NBA player in Holmes.
Cross: A: Slow first half, awesome 2nd. If Holmes wasn’t around, you might be talking about Cross as the Player of the Year at this point.
Hankins-Sanford: A-: This guy needs to play more as he consistently scores, rebounds,and plays hard in his limited minutes.
Thompson: D: Definitely off his game today with 0 points, but he has proven he will rebound from a bad game.
Diggins: C-: a few good drives, but his 4-17 shooting was about as bad as it gets.
Curry: B: Played well on the road and hopefully this is a sign that he can be the reliable #1 guard off the bench.
Worthy: C: Not much to say as you hope this kid can get back some confidence he had earlier in the year.
Davis: C-: Looked lost out there as we were all hoping maybe this kid could have a WVU type game.
Frank: B+: Really can’t blame Frank for the poor shooting as players need to make shots, and I appreciate the fact that Frank keeps his players in the game (grinding it out) when they are struggling. Under McCall or some of our other post-Calipari coaches, we would have thrown in the towel and been blown out by 30. You know Frank wants another matchup against Dayton in the A10 Tournament!

Frontcourt was pretty awesome. Ndjigue a B, maybe? Made a lot of errors but still contributed greatly to the comeback.

Even though Davis's 5 minutes in the 1st half were atrocious, I wish he would've been able to at least get in the 2nd half, especially once Dayton went zone and no one was hitting an outside shot.

Definitely felt that Curry's 15 minutes were louder than Thompson's 25. Curry missed a lot and all, but at least he was aggressive. Thompson was pretty invisible on the offensive end.

I guess Diggins is about right at C-. No assists and 0-10 from 3. His D and boards and the occasional drive to the hoop kept him in.

Hope they continue to play this hard every night, if so, it'll definitely pay off in the wins column. They definitely had the 'refuse to lose' type attitude out there that I love to see. Totally agree with the comment about a McCall team being blown out by 30 in this one. They would've given up.

Missed including Ndijgue in grades. Also a solid B or above.