Small lineup produces good results for Minutemen in victory over Fordham
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AMHERST - Against a Fordham lineup that didn't feature much size, University of Massachusetts men's basketball coach Derek Kellogg used a smaller lineup for much of the game to counteract the loss of injured freshman center Cady Lalanne.
The strategy worked as UMass won 80-76 Thursday at the Mullins Center.
Senior center Sean Carter, who had two first-half fouls, played 14 minutes in the second half before fouling out. Kellogg often used freshman Maxie Esho and sophomore Raphiael Putney inside in the back of the 3-2 zone.
Kellogg said he didn't feel comfortable playing without a center.
"It was out of necessity. I usually like to have one bigger guy in there to move around Sean and then Cady was that second guy. We tried a couple different things. I even played a little zone in the first half. I'll get more comfortable, there aren't a lot of other options. I'm going to have to get comfortable quickly," Kellogg said. "I thought they played great in the zone. For not working on it a ton and for not being a zone coach, I think they did a good job."
Lalanne is expected to miss four to six weeks.
FREE THROW WOES - The Minutemen won despite a rough night at the free throw line. UMass shot 22-for-37, including 14-for-24 in the second half.
"I hadn't really looked at it much until after this game, so we'll take a peek at it. Definitely, we'll work on it in practice. We have time now, with no class, to get in here and shoot some free throws and then also practice in the afternoon, so that could be something to work on," Kellogg said. "Because obviously we're going to be in a lot of tight games and it's nice when you can put teams away by making free throws."
Normally reliable from the line, sophomore point guard Chaz Williams was 5-for-10.
"It's just me, getting in the gym and working on other things in my game," Williams said. "I did have somewhat of a good free-throw percentage, and I could say that I personally took away from shooting free throws in practice. I'm just going to pretty much blame it on myself and get back in the gym and work on my free throws."
NEXT UP - UMass heads to Philadelphia to play La Salle at 2 p.m. Sunday at Tom Gola Arena, a place the Minutemen haven't had much success in recent years. The Explorers are 11-4 and 1-0 in the Atlantic 10 after upsetting Xavier 80-70 on Wednesday.
South Carolina transfer Ramon Galloway leads La Salle with 15.3 points per game.
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.
