CORAL GABLES, Fla - After trailing by 10 points at halftime, the University of Massachusetts men's basketball team three times got within three in the last five minutes of the second half Saturday, but never took the lead and fell to Miami at BankUnited Center.

The Hurricanes finally put the Minutemen away in the final two minutes and won 83-75.

With Miami (5-2) leading 79-74, Sean Carter missed two free throws for UMass. After Shane Larkin missed a layup at the other end, Chaz Williams hit the front of the rim with a 3-point try. Carter got the offensive rebound, but missed a layup. Jesse Morgan gave another rebound back to Carter, who was blocked by Kenny Kadji with 70 seconds left. The rebound went off Carter's hands and out of bounds.

The empty sequence seemed to deflate the Minutemen (6-3) who did not score from the floor again.

"We gave one away," Carter said. "We had ourselves in position, but we kept doing stuff to hurt ourselves. Everything we did was self-imposed."

UMass coach Derek Kellogg said his team needed to play the entire game the way it played the second half.

"I expect them to play that way the whole game," Kellogg said. "I appreciate that they competed in the second half. We have to put a complete 40-minute game together."

Williams led the comeback with 14 of his game-high 22 points in the second half.

"He was good tonight," Kellogg said. "He was playing the way he's played when we've played well. He attacked their defense,"

The Minutemen, whose 3-point shooting has determined the outcome of their games for much of the season, rallied Saturday without the long-range shots. They made two of their seven 3-pointers in the second half and instead used an effective midrange game as they chipped away.

Durand Scott led the Hurricanes with 16 points, all on free throws, and six assists.

"That's the first time in my coaching career that my leading scorer didn't have a field goal," said Miami coach Jim Larranaga.

Malcolm Grant added 15 points and Shane Larkin had 14 for the Hurricanes.

Carter had 12 points, eight rebounds and a block, and Morgan added 10 points.

UMass is at East Carolina at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

The Minutemen have had long scoring droughts in each of their three losses this season, Saturday's came late in the first half. After back-to-back 3-pointers by Williams put UMass ahead 25-22 and led Miami to take a time-out with 8 minutes, 43 seconds left in the first half, the Minuteman offense went cold for over seven minutes and the Hurricanes went on a 17-1 run to seize control of the game.

UMass was 0-for-7 (including 0-for-3 from 3-point range) and turned the ball over six times during that stretch, before Carter finished an alley-oop pass from Williams to end the drought.

After two free throws by Scott, Morgan hit a late 3-pointer to bring the Minutemen within 41-31 at halftime.

In the first half "we stepped back and took the pressure off them and really let them dictate tempo and style of play," Kellogg said. "In the second half we played really hard and did some great things. We just put them to the free throw line too many times and did some young immature mistakes."

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.