Atlantic City, NJ- The last time that the UMass Minutemen (2-3) faced off against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights (3-1), the game took 23 days to be completed as the Minutemen won 77-62 in a game that was suspended at half time by a student protest in 1995. By the time that the game that started February 8th was finished on March 3rd, Marcus Camby had healed from a hamstring injury and went on to lead all scorers with 12 points in only a half of play. Tonight in the semi-final round of the Legends Classic, the Minutemen’s leading scorer once again did his damage in the second half. Despite Ricky Harris scoring 20 of his 22 points in the second half, the Minutemen still fell to the Scarlet Knights 83-75.
What was expected to have been a battle of high scoring guards, looked like an early flop as Ricky Harris appeared to be incapable of guarding Michael Rosario. Rosario scored the Knights first 10 points, giving his team a 10-6 lead with just over 16 minutes to play in the first half. With Harris going to the bench, the Minutemen were able to even the game out again on two Freddie Riley 3-pointers sandwiched around a Hamady Ndiaye layup. After an Anthony Gurley layup to give the Minutemen their only lead of the game, the Knights quickly responded with a James Beatty 3-pointer for a lead that they would not relinquish.
In the second half the real Ricky Harris returned for the Minutemen as they attempted to make the game competitive. Trailing by 19 points with 15:23 left in regulation, the Minutemen developed a new game plan of letting Ricky score and not let Rosario score. Coming out of a 30 second timeout, Coach Kellogg’s guys would begin to chip away at the local team’s lead. With Harris scoring 20 of the Minutemen’s next 34 points, the Knights saw their lead shrink to four points following a Harris 3-point basket with 1:32 to play.
Already in the penalty, the Minutemen began to take an educated gamble and started to foul the Scarlet Knights. Rutgers entered the game shooting only 56% from the charity stripe, so this was one bet that would not pay off for the Minutemen. Mike Coburn and James Beatty would combine to go 4-6 from the free throw line to closing out the scoring for both teams.
For the game, Harris and Rosario each scored 22 points to lead their respective teams. Anthony Gurley added 19 for the Minutemen while David Gibbs scored a career high 11 points in the losing effort. Rutgers had four players in addition to Rosario in double digits including Ndiaye (14), Coburn (13), Jonathan Mithcell, and Gregory Echenique (10 each).
The Minutemen will take on the Michigan State tomorrow at 5:30pm after the Spartans fell to Florida 77-74 in tonight’s night cap.
You can reach Chris the Minuteman Examiner at Minuteman_Examiner@comcast.net and be notified of other UMass Minuteman stories on Examiner.com by clicking the subscribe button at the top of this page. Go U, Go UMass
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