The Minutemen saw their seven-game winning streak snapped in the loss.
UMass fell short in a 70-62 loss to Saint Louis Thursday.
ST. LOUIS — Eventually, the University of Massachusetts basketball team just ran out of gas.
After to appearing to overcome the adversity of an injury to its second-leading scorer, foul trouble, and playing on the road in front of 8,462 screaming fans at Chaifetz Arena, the Minutemen saw their seven-game winning streak snapped in their conference opener 70-62 at Saint Louis.
UMass was dealt a blow early in the second half, when, trailing by five, starting guard Jesse Morgan went down with a what trainer Dave Macutsky said is a sprained right knee.
As he drove to the right side of the lane just over a minute into the second half, Morgan’s right knee buckled underneath him. He went to the floor writhing and screaming loudly in pain underneath the basket before being helped off the floor and to the locker room a few minutes later.
After the injury, the Billikens extended their lead to eight, and Kellogg took a timeout to calm his team down.
“I told them it was an accident. It wasn’t like anybody pushed him or hit him,” Kellogg said. “We can’t retaliate. You’ve got to play smart basketball and just fight back. Go play harder, go play tougher and let’s try to play for Jesse a little bit.”
Cady Lalanne did just that, scoring nine of his career-high 18 points (he also added 13 rebounds) to rally the Minutemen to a one-point lead when he tipped a missed Chaz Williams layup in with 9:39 to play.
After a Chaz Williams 3-pointer grew UMass’ lead to four, the Billikens fought back with five points in one minute to retake the lead they would not relinquish.
The Billikens executed their signature slow pace to run the clock down over the next few minutes.
“I thought they did a good job of really controlling tempo the last really five, six, seven minutes of the game,” Kellogg said. “Our style is that we need to get some plays in transition.”
When Raphiael Putney fouled Saint Louis’ Cody Ellis on a 3-point attempt with 4:43 to go, fouled out and watched Ellis sink three free throws, things got worse as the Saint Louis lead burgeoned to six, and the momentum was gone for good.
“I thought the momentum really shifted on the ball-fake Ellis 3 where he got three free throws,” Kellogg said.
UMass got some good looks at the basket late in the game — particularly an open 3-pointer for Freddie Riley with 2:28 to go and trailing by four — but couldn’t convert, finishing the game 2 for 11 from the floor on its final 14 possessions.
Rob Loe led Saint Louis with a career-high 20 points.
After an emotional, hard-fought loss, the Minutemen must turn around quickly to get ready for another road game Sunday at Fordham without Morgan, who will be evaluated daily but will not play against the Rams.
“This is a league where you just got to not really put it not really behind you — you’ve got to learn from it and get better — but at the same token, we play now on Sunday, and we’ve got to get ready for that game,” Kellogg said.
Besides missing Morgan, the Minutemen were missing Terrell Vinson and Putney for large portions of the game because of early foul trouble.
Vinson picked up his second foul just over three minutes into the contest, and the problems continued when both Putney and Williams picked up their second fouls in the latter portion of the half.
But UMass battled through, utilizing nifty pick and roll plays with Williams and Lalanne to combat the Billikens’ vaunted man-to-man defense. Lalanne played as well as he had all season long on the offensive end.