Saint Peter’s shows fight in valiant loss to UMass Lowell

By Ray Curren (@currenrr)

LOWELL, Mass. - Now three years in, there is no doubt that Saint Peter’s is now Bashir Mason’s team.

After a Spider-Man meme season opener against former coach Shaheen Holloway and Seton Hall Monday which saw the Peacocks battle in a defensive struggle until the end before falling, Friday night brought a much different challenge against a very good offensive mid-major in UMass Lowell.

As usual, no one is going to question a Bashir Mason team’s heart or effort as it battled back several times, but in the end, Saint Peter’s could not get enough stops without fouling in the second half as the River Hawks—who have legitimate hopes of finally toppling Vermont in the America East with a veteran squad—moved to 2-0 with an 81-74 victory at the Costello Center.

After committing 30 fouls in the Seton Hall opener, the Peacocks (0-2) were whistled for 28 more Friday night, 18 of them in the second half, eight in the first six minutes after the intermission. Mount St. Mary’s transfer Quinton Mincey led UMass Lowell with 27 points and was amazingly fouled 14 times in the contest, going 14-16 at the free throw line.

“It just wasn’t a clean, organized game from us,” Mason said. “A ton of fouls and mistakes and that’s not going to work against a championship-level opponent like this. They made us pay for our mistakes. We’ll watch film and make whatever adjustments we need to make to not foul as much, but we are fouling and we need to fix it.”

Said UMass Lowell coach Pat Duquette, who has coached the River Hawks since they moved up to Division I in 2013-14: “It was tough because we don’t play like that, so it’s hard to simulate. You show them on film and just work on spacing and cutting. Fundamentally, spacing should be key against a team like that. It makes it very difficult to trap and turn you over if you have great spacing. We’ve never really struggled against a pressing team, so we don’t mind, honestly, as ugly as that was at times.”

This isn’t a new problem for Mason (or for Saint Peter’s under Holloway). His teams have been in the bottom 50 nationally in defensive free throw rate in 10 of his last 11 seasons as a head coach including being dead last nationally (363rd) in his first season in Jersey City (2022-23). The tradeoff, of course, is forcing turnovers and difficult shots, which is how the Peacocks held Seton Hall to just 57 points Monday night. 

Saint Peter’s is the defending MAAC champion, and I’ve heard had some NCAA Tournament success under Holloway with a similar style (in that Elite Eight season, the Peacocks finished 25th nationally in defensive efficiency despite being 347th in defensive free throw rate), so it can work. But the River Hawks, led by Jacksonville State transfer Quincy Clark at the point, turned the ball over just nine times. With all the foul trouble, Mincey took over inside, scoring 18 points in the second half.

“I don’t think they’re going to give up 81 points too many times this season,” Duquette said. “We can win in a lot of different ways and that’s how you want to play, we’ll shoot free throws and we’ll battle. I don’t think we’ll face a team that presses that much the rest of the season, certainly not in our league unless someone changes things up.”

The Peacocks did not lead after the opening basket of the night, but were within one, at 29-28, until an 8-0 run to finish the half made it 37-28 at the break. The lead ballooned to 15 just after halftime and almost everyone expected Mason to call timeout, but he didn’t, and his team responded anyway. Again, the lead got to 14 midway through the second half and Mason let his team play through it. Despite everything, it was a one-possession game in the final minutes (the second half alone took 81 minutes with all the fouls and SIX monitor reviews that resulted in two upgraded to flagrant-1 fouls).

“We have a bunch of new faces, so I want these guys to feel it and kind of go through it and have to figure some things out early,” Mason said. “Do you want to lose? Absolutely not, but we have a marathon here, not a sprint.”

The Peacocks did finish at 1.06 points per possession and were led by Marcus Randolph with 16 points and 14 from Mouhamed Sow, who controlled the paint and did step out and hit a three. Encouraging numbers from a team that—even as MAAC champs last season—finished 306th nationally in offensive efficiency and 353rd in effective field goal percentage. Armoni Zeigler also showed some offensive flashes, as did Adetokunbo Bakare off the bench.

It stands to reason that Saint Peter’s, again, will not be fun to play against this season. But can the Peacocks repeat as MAAC champions? Of course. But they’ll have to get the equation of fouling less and turning people over more in balance. It doesn’t get any easier in the short term, as the Peacocks are at Rutgers Monday and do not have a Division I home game until hosting Manhattan in the MAAC opener on December 6.