The Daily Collegian

Issue date: 3/14/07 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Michael Phillis/Collegian

Sophomore point guard Chris Lowe hit his signature floater in the lane with 1.6 seconds remaining in overtime to give the Massachusetts men's basketball team an 89-87 win over Alabama in the first round of the NIT last night at the Mullins Center.

Alabama's Demetrius Jemison tied the game at 87 with just under 10 seconds left in overtime. UMass didn't call a timeout, and Lowe drove the ball to the net and pulled up for a fadeaway floater that dropped through basket.

"I just saw that there were nine seconds on the clock, so I just said, 'I'm going to just take this shot,'" Lowe said after the win.

"That wouldn't have been exactly what I had drawn up," UMass coach Travis Ford said. "But it worked."

Lowe tied his career high of 19 points, but his clutch shot to end Tuesday night's game made the difference.

"UMass made the plays when they needed to make them," ALA coach Mark Gottfried said. "We just came up one play short."

The Minutemen travel to West Virginia to face the No. 1 seeded Mountaineers tomorrow night at 9 p.m. in the second round of the tournament.

It looked as though UMass had the game won in the final seconds of the second half, but Alabama guard Mykal Riley hit a deep 3-pointer at the buzzer to send the game into overtime tied at 83.

"That was just a slugfest," Ford said. "A lot of teams would wilt after seeing a 3-pointer go in like that at home. We thought we had the game, and a lot of teams would just give up, but we learned from our last outing versus Saint Louis."

The Billikens knocked the Minutemen out of the Atlantic 10 Tournament on Thursday in overtime, taking advantage of UMass' mysterious illness and eliminating its hopes at an NCAA Tournament bid.

"When we're healthy, we're not bad," Ford said. "It feels good to be healthy. It wasn't the prettiest game, but we made big defensive plays when we needed it, and we made big offensive plays when we needed it."

Alabama took its largest lead of the game when point guard Brandon Hollinger made a tip-in with 11:37 remaining in the second half. UMass battled back to tie it at 65 with eight minutes left after Lowe made a 3-pointer and another floater in consecutive possessions.

"We don't go into games planning to have him score 19 points," Ford said on Lowe's performance. "He wasn't looking to score. We get in trouble when Chris is looking to score. Every shot he took tonight was a good shot, it was an open shot."

UMass ended the first half with plenty of momentum, but it was Alabama's Justin Tubbs that got the last laugh. Tubbs answered a Lasme block by knocking down a 3-pointer at the buzzer, cutting UMass' lead down to 41-40 at halftime.

The final few minutes of the first half went in favor of the Minutemen, thanks to Lasme's unwillingness to be stopped under the basket. Lasme scored nine of his 13 first-half points in the final seven minutes.

Back-to-back dunks by UMass' big man with 2:30 left gave the Minutemen a 31-30 lead, which they held onto until five minutes into the second half.

When all the drama was over, the Minutemen looked like a team that isn't just trying to get respect in the NIT, they're trying to win the whole thing.

"We had hopes of going to the NCAA Tournament, but things happen," Lowe said. "We moved on, and now we're in the NIT and we're going to make a run at it."

Danny Picard can be reached at dpicard@student.umass.edu.

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