AMHERST — There was far more relief than joy on the faces of the UMass men’s basketball players as they walked off the Mullins Center court Tuesday.

The Minutemen played from behind for most of the game against a much peskier-than-expected North Carolina A&T team. But UMass shook off early shooting woes and made some key shots late to escape with a 65-59 win.

“Our guys did a nice job of fighting their way back and at least clawing their way to a victory,” UMass coach Derek Kellogg said.

N.C. A&T exploded out of the gate and UMass couldn’t make a shot. The Minutemen missed their first seven shots and fell behind 11-0. C.J. Anderson (nine points, eight rebounds, five assists, three steals) broke the ice with 15 minutes, 43 seconds left and made 1 of 2 free throws shortly after. The Minutemen then missed another six straight and trailed 20-3 with 11:50 left.

Tangibly, DeJon Jarreau’s back-to-back blocks were actually a bad thing. Had either of the shots he blocked went in, it would have prevented Sam Hunt from knocking down a 3-pointer moments later that gave the Aggies their biggest lead to that point, 29-11 with 5:00 remaining.

But the sequence seemed to give Jarreau and the Minutemen a lift. The freshman made UMass’ first 3-pointer of the game — the Minutemen missed their first 12 from deep — at the other end, starting a half-ending 19-2 run. Donte Clark had all 12 of his first-half points in that run as the Minutemen got within 31-30 at halftime.

The momentum didn’t carry over as the Aggies scored the first six points out of intermission, forcing UMass to keep chasing. N.C. A&T never led by more than six in the second half, but the Minutemen couldn’t pull ahead until Zach Lewis scored his only baskets of the game, a 3-pointer and a layup off a Malik Hines steal, to give the home team a 52-51 lead with 6:02 left.

Davaris McGowens answered with a layup at the other end to briefly regain the lead for the Aggies.

But Luwane Pipkins (11 points, five assists, two steals), who’d missed his first five 3-pointers, buried one to make it 55-53 with 4:27 left.

It started a 7-0 run that gave UMass a cushion just large enough to hold on.

“I was never worried during the game,” Anderson said. “We were just missing a bunch of shots. Nothing was falling. We were trying to mature in the second half. We were trying to focus. We were playing around a little too much. We picked it back up.”

Clark led UMass with 22 points, six assists and two blocked shots. Sam Hunt had 16 for A&T (1-8).

The Minutemen (7-3) host Kennesaw State at 1 p.m. Saturday.

Kellogg shortened his bench with only eight players seeing regular minutes. He used four guards and a 2-3 zone for long stretches.

“We were struggling to cover their ball-screen offense. I thought going zone corralled them a little bit and we were able to get some runs out of that,” he said. “We have to get back to being serious and really locked in. My focus is academics No. 1 (finals start Friday) and No. 2 is getting this team to be focused, and how gritty and tough they need to be to win games.”

Kellogg said his team needs to play more consistently with an edge.

“When we have a little bit of an edge we’re a pretty good team. When we don’t we kind of walk though a game,” Kellogg said. “We’ll get the edge back. I’m going to try to get these guys through finals and make sure they do what they need to do. But then we’re going to come back and hit the floor running.”

Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage

]]>