Yes Croz, it has been a long time comin', but there'll be no long time before the dawn. No, dawn came at about 11PM last night as the UMass Minutemen defeated the hated Boston College Eagles, 83-80. I've never been shy about my dis-taste for our cross-state rivals, and as such the 21st century has not been kind to me when it comes to the Commonwealth Classic. Last night, Gary Forbes, Ricky Harris, Chris Lowe and company vanquished this dread foe, and for the second time this season, made a statement that this will be a team to be reckoned with.
In beating Syracuse and Boston College, UMass will head into a stretch of non-conference games against teams looking to topple a giant as opposed to the other way around. The Minutemen will no longer be able to sneak up on anyone. After tilts with Toledo and Central Connecticut, the maroon and white will face BU, Houston and Vandy before the A-10 regular season commences in January. Of those games, only Vanderbilt is a road game. That mean 4 straight in The House That Calipari built for a team that is feelin' it right now. Can the boys go into the A-10 slate at 11-3 or, dare I say it, 12-2? That remains to be seen, but given the defensive effort shown in the wins over Marist and BC, it isn't hard to imagine. While UMass started the season as an offensive juggernaut that simply ran other teams off the floor, they have shown over the past couple of games that they can lock it down if they need to.
We heard that this was a "re-building" season. We heard that it would take time to implement Travis Ford's new, up-tempo style of play. We heard this crop of Minutemen would struggle to compete with the loss of Rashaun Freeman and Stephane Lasme to France and the NBA respectively. We heard it, but apparently nobody bothered to mention that to the team.
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