UMassHoops.com

minutefanjsf wrote: Wed Dec 31, 2025 10:34 am

Floyd wrote: Wed Dec 31, 2025 9:51 am I agree about Banks, let him shoot whenever open, and I'm cool with Parker when he's open too, unless its a situation where we need to run clock. Those two can shoot it with consistency.

Parker took a horrible shot when we we closing the gap in the last two minutes. Seems they don’t know when they are open or what a good shot is. Don’t know if that is overconfidence, bad coaching, or a mixture of both.

Frank should have called time out when Parker was boxed in during this play. He couldn’t do anything except shoot.

69MG wrote: Wed Dec 31, 2025 2:27 pm After further review, I have 2 more questions:

1. Was Leo so ineffective that Frank benched him? He only played 12 minutes, and he only had 3 fouls. I know 2 were early, but 12 minutes?
2. Why does Wimbley get playing time over Placide, Brown or even Outlaw? 20.5% from the field, 15.8 from 3 and 42.9 from the line.

1: He waited far too long to get Leo back in the game in the 2nd. It was very strange.
2: No clue, but Placide has shown he deserves more time.

InnervisionsUMASS wrote: Wed Dec 31, 2025 4:24 pm

69MG wrote: Wed Dec 31, 2025 2:27 pm After further review, I have 2 more questions:

1. Was Leo so ineffective that Frank benched him? He only played 12 minutes, and he only had 3 fouls. I know 2 were early, but 12 minutes?
2. Why does Wimbley get playing time over Placide, Brown or even Outlaw? 20.5% from the field, 15.8 from 3 and 42.9 from the line.

1: He waited far too long to get Leo back in the game in the 2nd. It was very strange.
2: No clue, but Placide has shown he deserves more time.

Leo was clueless out there. Should have sat him the whole game based on what I saw in the last seven minutes. He gave up baseline drives and got pushed under the rim and couldn’t hold his on defending Habhab. Outlaw is a four. Wimbley must be doing something better in practice.

Funny thing is that we did not recruit any of the guys at Eastern Michigan - for a lot of them EMU was the best offer they received, the other schools were low tier conferences. And we still couldn't beat them. No doubt we're the better team on paper, and we have a coach who's job it is to get the most out of his players, but that's the thing.. we're not getting the most out of our players. And we haven't, the past 3 seasons. Look at the success of the transfers, it's not rocket science.

Tough to be told as fans that we need to donate more money as we get beat by teams with a fraction of our budget. That's not a money issue.

UMass women’s 75 net - best in MAC
UMass men’s 195 net -8th best in MAC

Let’s hope men finish in top 8 as only 8 make the conference tournament. I do think the talent is much better than 195 but this is where we are now

69MG wrote: Wed Dec 31, 2025 12:57 pm When you look at the box score, obviously the number of free throws jumps out at you. My question is, were they legit fouls or did we get a lot of bad calls? I know reach-in fouls have been an issue this season, but 39 free throws is a big number.

I wasn't watching closely the entire game, but I didn't detect many bad calls. Maybe a couple that were soft / home benefit, but overall I didn't think it was bad officiating.

69MG wrote: Wed Dec 31, 2025 2:27 pm After further review, I have 2 more questions:

1. Was Leo so ineffective that Frank benched him? He only played 12 minutes, and he only had 3 fouls. I know 2 were early, but 12 minutes?
2. Why does Wimbley get playing time over Placide, Brown or even Outlaw? 20.5% from the field, 15.8 from 3 and 42.9 from the line.

Leo picked up 2 fouls in the 1st 3-1/2 minutes so he sat the rest of the half. Early on in the 2nd half I saw him go to the ground after a rebound attempt and he grabbed his ankle/foot/lower leg - he continued to stretch it as free throws were shot - he ran back up the court with a noticeable limp but never asked to come out but to me the limp was obvious. Shortly after that he picked up 3rd foul - at that point he might have told the trainer he did something to his foot or lower leg, and based on the fact he had 3 foul, and as others mentioned, was very ineffective while he was in maybe thats why he sat so long? Not sure, but getting 2 fouls that early and never really getting into the flow really hurt them - regardless of how well Clerc played. Most, if not all Clercs point come on put backs - not that that's a bad thing, but Leo is heavily involved in the offense and when he's not in the offense does not look as good as when he's in there.

Wasn't that Clerc that was limping?

Floyd wrote: Thu Jan 01, 2026 12:01 pm Wasn't that Clerc that was limping?

tough to mix those two up! LOL

but maybe he was too? I know for sure Leo was - didn't notice Clerc though

I could be totally wrong. I thought Clerc got fouled & hurt on a defensive rebound and then hit his free throws but stayed in. It could have been Leo tho. My bad if my memory sucks

DanaDingle3 wrote: Wed Dec 31, 2025 8:19 pm Tough to be told as fans that we need to donate more money as we get beat by teams with a fraction of our budget. That's not a money issue.

This

Give Frank another million; that ought to do it.

Floyd wrote: Thu Jan 01, 2026 12:16 pm I could be totally wrong. I thought Clerc got fouled & hurt on a defensive rebound and then hit his free throws but stayed in. It could have been Leo tho. My bad if my memory sucks

you are correct about Clerc and staying in for those FT's after he got banged up - but Leo did something to his lower leg and was limping around for most of the 2nd half

The Collective and fans were fighting again on Twitter after this game, in case anyone missed it.