The Massachusetts Women’s Basketball team had a rough time in Cancun, losing all three games at the Cancun Challenge. The Minutewomen lost to Green Bay, Washington State and Maryland. 

This was the toughest stretch of the Minutewomen’s schedule as Washington State and Maryland flashed their superiority over a team like UMass. Additionally, playing three games in three days added a toll of exhaustion for the eight active players UMass had available. 

With only eight players available, the starters for Massachusetts had to continue to play even when games got out of reach. During the game against Green Bay, guard Jermany Mapp went down with an injury in the fourth quarter. 

This ruled her out for the next two games and saw the Minutewomen active roster go down to seven. With the limited number of players available, teams used this to their advantage, rotating players to keep attacking tired UMass players. 

In these three games, Massachusetts was outscored 267-163. Additionally, the Minutewomen have not started any of their games well. Bar the first two games of the season, in the last six games UMass has been outscored in the first quarter 144-75. A point differential of 69 points and have shot a mere 28% from the field in the first quarter. 

While head coach Mike Leflar may not have a fully healthy roster, he has to find ways to get them going at tipoff, so they don’t fall behind early making the game out of reach.

There are some positives from the trip to Cancun, as four Minutewomen reached career highs. Forward Lilly Taulelei had a career-high of 14 points against Maryland and so did guard Lilly Ferguson with eight points. Guard Dallas Pierce set a career-high in points against Washington State and Maryland with seven points. 

However, it’s been guard Stefanie Kulesza who’s been the spark for the Minutewomen this season. After being given a limited number of games to showcase her skills during her freshman and sophomore years, Kulesza, now a junior, has been unleashed. Kulesza set her career-high in points against the Cougars with 20 points and is the team’s most consistent scorer. 

However, the same problems are present for the Minutewomen. Turnovers remain one of the biggest problems for UMass, and that was displayed in Cancun. UMass turned the ball over 59 times in Cancun and set a season-high of 28 turnovers against the Terrapins. 

After being one of the better teams at not turning the ball over last year, the Minutewomen have the most turnovers with 143 in the A10 and average the third-most turnovers per game with 18.1. 

Rebounds also remain a big problem for the Minutewomen. UMass has been outrebounded in seven of their eight games played this season. In fact, the Minutewomen have given up the most rebounds to their opponents in the A10, with 312. A stark contrast to last season as the Minutewomen were the second-best team at rebounding. 

Regardless of the great play from Kulesza and others, UMass needs to do better in handling the ball and getting rebounds. With the remaining games on the schedule against teams in their conference, the Minutewomen have to find a way to regroup and come together to salvage this poor start to the season.

The Minutewomen now sit at 1-7 and will look to get back to winning ways against Yale on Dec. 1 with tipoff set for 7 p.m. in Connecticut.