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The UMass Minutemen’s 69-67 overtime win felt a lot like making out with a mediocre girl at a UMass frat party. Nothing special, but better than nothing. They did what they had to do, but it’s nothing to be proud of. Here’s TurtleBoy Sports thoughts on the game….

• Those jerseys are really, really God awful. Wearing sleeves is like going backwards in our evolutionary tracks. I know Marcus Camby made it ghetto-fabulous to wear giant sleeves

but they can’t possibly do anything to help you play the game of basketball. Anyone who watched the abomination known as the NBA on Christmas Day can testify to the fact that wearing sleeves makes the game look more and more like a YMCA pick up game.

• The crowd was classic UMass. Even though the Mullins Center wasn’t really built to make noise (bring back the Cage!!), that place was rocking. Haven’t seen it that loud there in years. The flagship University of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts features some of the biggest degenerate hooligans allowed into any college. Once school is back in session I expect to see every coed from Southwest march down to the Mullins Center, filled with holiday spirits from a 15th floor of Coolidge Round Robin party. That’s how you become a really, really exciting program to watch. Hooligans like this:

And this

represent UMass fans at their finest. Belligerent. Abrasive. Offensive. Inappropriate. Without inhibition. The UMass student body has the potential to give this team the best home court advantage in the nation.

• The refs were atrocious as usual. The fact that UMass can’t get calls at home is an example of the Kevin Gormanizing of college basketball. They get absolutely no respect that a Top 25 team at home should from the zebras. The most egregious play was the Chaz Williams fifth foul:

The only thing worse than the refs was the woman doing the commentating. This has nothing to do with the fact that she is a woman. It has to do with the fact that she tried to rationalize that terrible, terrible call by the referee. As you heard on the video she tried saying that Chaz tripped with his feet. Any truth to that?

Nope. Apparently she thinks that having your foot stepped on is a foul. The fact that the refs let a Player of the Year candidate foul out on such shenanigans is a disgrace to college basketball and human kind in general. A nearly equal terrible no-call occurred on the game tying layup by Mr. Cotton. There’s a reason it looked like such an easy layup. Watch what happens  in the paint:

That was a hole that Logan Mankins would be proud to have created. For the record you are not allowed to do completely push the guy you are guarding out of the paint in an attempt to create a lane for an uncontested layup.

• Derek Kellogg was beyond terrible in this game. Providence had no business finishing within ten points of the Minutemen. After a craptacular first half UMass realized it could run Providence out of the gym and took a ten point lead like it was nothing in the second half. Then they absolutely choked. Yes, the refs were terrible again, but when a team blows a ten point lead with three minutes to go that one goes on the coach. No way does Providence do that to a team coached by Brad Stevens, Roy Williams, Bill Self, or Shaka Smart.
• The lack of a timeout call (with three remaining) on the final play of regulation was embarrassing and inexcusable. The UMass footie-pajama crew is already blaming that on Trey Davis. Here’s how it went down:

The DK apologists have told me that Davis knew what to do but that he didn’t execute. Terrible, terrible excuse. After setting up a defense that gave Cotton the easiest layup of his entire life, DK inexplicably trusted his backup and inexperienced tweener guard to run a game winning play in the closing seconds. Any moron watching that game knew that Davis had no freaking clue what he was doing. They couldn’t really stop Cady Lalanne. Calling a timeout and designing a play that gets the ball in Cady’s hands was so obvious my wife couldn’t understand why he didn’t do it.

• Derek Gordon completely bailed out his coach on the final play. Watch DK’s coaching tactics. Here’s what happened:

Right away it’s obvious that his team has no freaking clue what to do, so he throws a nutty on the sideline yelling at Gordon to move. That would’ve been the right time to call a timeout. These aren’t sick days – they don’t carry over to the next game. Instead he lets the same player who completely choked in the final seconds of regulation try to create and then force a shot that had no prayer. Luckily Gordon was in the right place at the right time and completely bailed his coach out.

So that’s our glass half empty take on the Minutemen. I’m thrilled that they’re 11-1 and ranked. I’m excited about what this team is capable of. But the fact is that their last two games have been a step backwards. I guess I have extremely high expectations for them at this point, so in our opinion you should be beating teams like Providence by double digits. They’re that good.

What do you think? Feel free to share your thoughts to keep the conversation going.

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