UMass sports teams sputter
1
2
3
AMHERST - In September 2007, as part of its marketing efforts, the University of Massachusetts athletic department launched a slogan - "Now is the time to be at UMass."
The timing was right. The school was in the midst of back-to-back postseason trips in basketball and football. The hockey team had just made the NCAA tournament. Men's lacrosse had reached the Final Four not long before (2006) and the men's soccer and field hockey teams were about to make unexpected NCAA tournament appearances.
Morale was high and success was abundant.
It hasn't even been four years since then, but it feels longer than that. The end of the men's basketball and hockey seasons last week finished off a difficult winter that followed a tough autumn for the Minutemen and Minutewomen.
In 2010-11, among the biggest UMass highlights are a close loss at Michigan in football and a come-from-behind tie in hockey that allowed UMass to avoid missing the Hockey East playoffs.
Memorable wins have been hard to find.
The only program to make the NCAA tournament was field hockey, but shortly after the season coach Justine Sowry left the Minutewomen for a better job. Even with the field hockey team's 15-8 record, the school's seven fall and winter spectator sports finished a combined 62-90-15.
"Has it been frustrating this year? I wouldn't argue with that. But we have to work that much harder and commit ourselves that much more to making progress and getting back to the winning side of the ledger," UMass athletic director John McCutcheon said. "I still think we have great potential with all our programs. It's unfortunate that we had several programs on a bit of a downswing all at the same time. A few years ago we had a lot of teams on the high end. It's important that we look at the individual situations and not get reactionary."
The woes have been particularly noticeable in UMass' highest profile programs.
Both the men's basketball and football teams finished with better records than they had last year. But after promising starts, both squads fizzled loudly down the stretch.
The football team almost certainly would have made the playoffs, exceeding external preseason expectations, if it had defeated Rhode Island in the final regular season game, but the Minutemen fell to the rival Rams and finished the year 6-5.
Coach Derek Kellogg's men's basketball team opened the year at 7-0, but went 8-15 after that. The Minutemen lost their last four games, two of which were blowouts while three were against teams in the bottom half of the Atlantic 10.
"Basketball is a cornerstone program for us and we need it to be successful," McCutcheon said. "We're not satisfied with how we played this year. I'm sure Derek feels the same way. That's the nature of the beast."
Expectations were low for the hockey and women's basketball teams. In addition to losing important seniors who graduated from the 2009-10 squad, the hockey team had three players, who would have been key returners, leave early to turn pro. The result was a very young squad who struggled all season. The Minutemen (6-23-6) were eliminated from the Hockey East playoffs on Saturday.
Meanwhile, new women's basketball coach Sharon Dawley's first UMass team finished 7-23 as she starts to rebuild a program that's had one winning season since 1999.
"We made a transition with women's basketball," McCutcheon said. "I feel very good about what Sharon is doing and the prospects for that program down the road."
Spring offers potentially new life for the department. The men's lacrosse team is ranked No. 10 in the nation and appears to have its most talent since the Final Four team. The Minutemen have already beaten three ranked teams.
New women's lacrosse coach Angela McMahon's career is off to a strong start. Her team is 6-0, its best start in 25 years. Her team checked in at No. 12 in the latest poll, which came out Monday.
The perennially good UMass softball team labored a bit against tough competition early with a lot of new players in key roles, but with All-America pitcher Sara Plourde, most people expect the Minutewomen to be back in the NCAA tournament in May.
The biggest potential for an infusion of energy in the department and fanbase is the football program's possible upgrade to Bowl Subdivision status. The much-talked-about move is nearer than ever and most observers expect that UMass will announce this spring it is joining the Mid-America Conference at some point.
McCutcheon, who emphasized that no decision has been made yet, acknowledged that the rumors have created positive energy.
"There are several dominoes that have to fall. Some of them have and some of them are lined up. But we still have several issues that need to be addressed and hurdles to clear for this to happen," he said. "I think there's some excitement about that and I think there's some frustration out there that we can't announce something quicker than we've been able to. It's a process. There are things in that process that are out of our control. It's been an issue that's been talked about here for years and years. To be this close to that possibility has to be creating some excitement."
Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Follow UMass coverage on Twitter at twitter.com/GazetteUMass. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at http://www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage.
