The win was UMass' first at La Salle since 2007.
Chaz Williams scored the winning basket for the UMass Minutemen on Wednesday.
PHILADELPHIA — With less than 30 seconds on the clock, and his team trailing by one, University of Massachusetts point guard Chaz Williams calmly dribbled the time away.
Yellow-clad La Salle students screamed at fever pitch to Williams’ left, and Explorers guard Sam Mills defended Williams loosely to his right.
As the clock dipped under 20 seconds, Williams wiped the bottom of his shoes. As it dipped to 13, he started to drive right toward a Cady Lalanne screen. Once Williams got around Lalanne, there was no one to stand in his way, and with just over eight seconds on the clock, he laid the ball in to give UMass a 61-60 victory over La Salle — its first at Tom Gola Arena since 2007.
La Salle, out of timeouts, rushed to the other end hoping for a buzzer-beater, but Tyreek Duren lost the ball on a drive, and Jerrell Wright’s 15-foot jump shot was blocked by Raphiael Putney at the buzzer.
“Once I saw Coach tell me to slow the ball down, I understood. I knew what we were going to run. Everybody else knew what we were going to run,” Williams said. “Coach has the respect for me to allow us to out there and make a play on our own without calling timeout. I just didn’t want him to look bad.”
The frantic final minute featured plenty of big moments for UMass. Trailing by one with 58 seconds to play after two UMass misses on the offensive end, Terrell Vinson dove for a loose ball and forced a tie-up with Mills near the baseline. That gave possession back to the Minutemen, and despite the fact that La Salle called its final timeout to get its defense set, Vinson scored to give the UMass a 59-58 lead with 51 seconds remaining.
“That was one big play,” Kellogg said. “To go on the road and win here after the way we’ve played in years past, we needed a lot of big plays.”
The Minutemen got the ball back with 37 seconds to go after Duren made a layup to put the Explorers ahead 61-60, setting up that game-winning play.
UMass jumped out to a 12-point first-half lead, spurred by 11 of Putney’s game-high 17 points. The early success was a total reversal from last year’s disastrous opening half at Tom Gola Arena that saw the Minutemen trail by 26 at halftime.
“I thought one of the biggest things for us was just to feel confident and have confidence,” Kellogg said. “Once we got nestled in in the first six or eight minutes of the game, then I knew we were going to be in for a battle for the rest of the night.”
The lead dwindled to six at the break, but UMass was able to buck its recent trend of getting destroyed to start the second half, instead holding a nine-point advantage with 14:31 to play.
But the La Salle run eventually came, as Explorers star point guard Ramon Galloway awoke from his first-half slumber, pouring in 13 second-half points as La Salle took the lead at 51-50 with 8:04 to go. UMass restored its advantage until a Galloway shot with 2:20 to go gave the Explorers a 58-57 lead heading into the final minute, and Williams’ eventual game winner.
Williams said that his original plan was to pass the ball, but Raphiael Putney was covered in the corner, giving Williams the space to finish the job himself.
“I wasn’t making shots all day, so I was actually looking to pass, but Galloway was hugging Putney because he played good today,” Williams said. “He was hugging him, and that allowed me to get to the rim freely.”
Explorers coach John Giannini was quick to give credit to UMass, but was also hugely disappointed by his team’s defense on the final basket.
“You couldn’t possibly cover a simple ball screen worse than we did on that play,” Giannini said. “They ran the most basic play that you run in noontime basketball and they got a wide open layup.”