Despite a poor shooting night from the offense, the Massachusetts Men’s Basketball team cruised past South Florida for a 66-56 win on Saturday afternoon.

It was not the best game of basketball played by both teams, as both teams shot under 40% from the field. The first half was a demonstration of this, as it was sloppy and undisciplined basketball. That was the theme for the majority of the game. 

Guards Rashool Diggins and Keon Thompson set the tone early for the Minutemen’s offense. They scored the first seven points of the game for UMass. Despite a good start by the two guards, it was a back-and-forth affair between these two teams.

It was not until the end of the first half when UMass was able to take hold of the game. Massachusetts had a seven-point lead going into halftime. Although the Minutemen had the lead entering the half, head coach Frank Martin was visibly frustrated with his team’s offensive performance. Martin was animated on the sidelines, yelling at his players to pass the ball more.

“I was not happy with our offense today, and that was on me,” said Martin. “We played with no force whatsoever towards the rim and we came out in the second half and did that.”

The Minutemen’s offense displayed what Martin wanted out of them, as they went to the line 25 times in the second half and shot a total of 41 free throws in the game. 

UMass star player Josh Cohen did not attempt his first shot of the game until halfway through the first half. Cohen went to the line eight times in the first half and in total shot a career-high 18 free throws. He went 13-18 from the line and scored a team-leading 21 points.

“We like the messy games, that helps us,” Cohen said. “There was nothing going in for us, but at the end of the day we’re going to rely on defense to win those games and that’s what we did.”

Defensively, the Minutemen were outstanding against the Bulls. South Florida’s best player, guard Chris Youngblood, went 1-13 from the field, only scored four points and fouled out of the game in the second half. 

The Minutemen forced 18 turnovers out of the Bulls and scored 20 points off of those turnovers. Additionally, they held the Bulls to two different scoring droughts that lasted eight minutes each. In that time, the Bulls could only score free throws to try to stay in the game. 

The Bulls kept fighting to the end and that can be attributed to their bench. South Florida has one of the best bench units in their conference and displayed that with 35 of their 56 points coming from it. 

While the Minutemen’s defense shined in Saturday’s game, both teams’ carelessness with the ball and fouling made the flow of the game slow. The Minutemen committed 25 fouls to the Bulls 32 and set a season-high of turnovers with 18.

In a physical and scrappy game like this, it all comes down to which team made game-winning plays and the Minutemen demonstrated that. Especially guard Jayden Ndjigue, who was constantly diving on the ball, fighting for rebounds and played with so much intensity that helped his team close out this game. 

“I hope your eyes don’t hurt [because] it wasn’t pretty,” said Martin about the game. “Everyone wants a pretty game, I thought the object was to win. You can play a pretty game and lose [so] it’s about winning. Winning gives everyone confidence and makes everyone feel better.”

The Minutemen now sit at 4-1 and are headed to Towson on Wednesday for their first road trip of the season. Tipoff is scheduled at 7 p.m.