Anosike got his double-double, but the Minutemen kept the nation's leading rebounder from dominating down low
ALBANY, N.Y. — The University of Massachusetts basketball team’s third skin-of-its-teeth victory of the year will likely be looked upon by fans — and rightfully so — as an escape.
That doesn’t mean the Minutemen did everything wrong in Wednesday’s 64-63 win over Siena.
The main challenge that UMass coach Derek Kellogg knew the Saints presented was center O.D. Anosike, who entered Wednesday as the nation’s leading rebounder at 14.3 per game, and had recorded a double-double in each of the Saints’ first six games of the 2012-13 season.
But the Minutemen, whether it was starting center Cady Lalanne, his newly anointed backup Sampson Carter, or Terrell Vinson, did a good job denying Anosike in the post, and kept him relatively quiet on the offensive glass, holding him to four offensive rebounds.
“That’s the one thing I was happy with. I thought we did a great job on him even in the first half,” Kellogg said. “It was nice that they listened on a scouting report that if he has an open layup, don’t be afraid to put him to the free-throw line if you have to.”
Anosike was just 3 for 8 from the line including two misses with 1:35 to go that left the door open for the eventual UMass comeback.
A huge part of that defensive effort was Carter, who gives up 20 pounds to Anosike according to each team’s roster, yet played 23 minutes to Lalanne’s 17.
“He was great, he was fantastic,” Kellogg said of Carter. “I just feel more comfortable with an older, more mature guy. He knew where to be on defense.”
FREE-THROW SHORTFALL
One of the things Kellogg said after the Puerto Rico Tipoff that he wanted to correct was the giant disparity between his team’s free-throw attempts and its opponents.
Entering Wednesday, opponents had shot 114 times from the line to UMass’ 63. It didn’t get any better against Siena. The Saints had 19 trips to the line compared to UMass’ 8.
While part of that is due to the Minutemen’s attempts to foul Anosike, UMass itself earned an unacceptable zero trips to the line during its abysmal 24-point first-half performance.
HITTING THE GLASS
UMass’ top three scorers, Jesse Morgan, Chaz Williams and Terrell Vinson, took 70 percent of the shots (48 of 69) Wednesday night, a figure Kellogg said he was mostly OK with because other guys were doing other things without feeling like they had to shoot.
“I like that Sampson (Carter) and Maxie (Esho) contributed and did a lot of the little things without acting like they had to shoot. That was good to see. Ten rebounds from both of those guys.”
The double-digit efforts in the rebounding column for Esho and Carter were the first for UMass since the opener against Harvard, when Cady Lalanne had a season-high 13 rebounds.