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Zack and Price propel La Salle past UMass

03/12/2015, 1:15pm EDT

By Garrett Miley

Garrett Miley (@GWMiley)
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BROOKLYN, N.Y.--La Salle’s season is still alive.

The Explorers were out-rebounded and out-shot by UMass, but John Giannini’s team is moving on to face top seed and Atlantic 10 Tournament rookies, Davidson.

Guard Jordan Price, scoring a game-high 28 points, carried the Explorers past UMass in what was an ugly, gritty Atlantic 10 tournament bout, 76-69. La Salle took care of the ball (only eight turnovers) and went a stellar 25-33 from the charity stripe (including 21-25 in the second half) to grind out an A-10 tournament win.

“We are obviously thrilled,” Giannni said after the win. “We beat a team that is a very good team and one that’s hard for us to matchup with. Their physicality is not easy to play against. But I think first and foremost, we gave great effort. That shows up defensively. We were strong and tough with the ball, only eight turnovers.”

After leading 31-30 at halftime, La Salle fell behind in the second half, 45-40 and it appeared that the season may be slipping away Giannini and the Explorers. La Salle erupted and went on a 9-0 run to take a 49-45 lead and led by as much as nine in the second half.

Price scored 13 first half points, including the first nine points for La Salle, albeit on 4-11 shooting from the floor and 1-4 from beyond the arc, but helped lead La Salle to a 31-30 advantage at intermission. UMass jumped out to an early 18-9 advantage, but Steve Zack and Cleon Roberts began to pick up the pace and support Price on offense.

“When you’re a guard and scoring and you don’t turn it over and you get rebounds, there’s a lot of credit for helping us win this game,” Giannini said of Price’s performance. “Forget about the points, just the rebounds and the passing alone are a big deal.”

Zack came into La Salle’s opening round matchup with the, no pun intended, tall task of battling inside of Cady Lalanne and Maxie Esho, two of the better and more seasoned big men in the entire Atlantic 10.

Zack finished with a double-double, tallying 12 points and 13 rebounds, and was able to “bang” inside with one of the best frountcourts in the conference.

“I knew I had to keep Esho in front of me,” Zack said. “He’s a quick four man that can drive you; if you relax, one big right by you. And Cady [Lalanne], that guy’s a monster. I have the utmost respect for him. Battled all night. Only way he couldn’t get the ball was if I down and around in front of him. So we’re battling through, they got it a couple times, but stayed in front.”

Roberts had one of his better games as an Explorer against UMass, playing stellar defense on Derrick Gordon and Trey Davis (Combined 4-18 and 11 points) and knocking down a three pointer late in the shot clock to cap the aforementioned 9-0 second half La Salle run to put his team ahead 49-45.

Cady Lalanne scored seven early points and grabbed nine first-half rebounds for UMass, and finished with a monster stat-line of 17 points and 16 rebounds in his final collegiate game.

Donte Clark scored eight first-half points to lead his team (3-6 from the floor). Clark went on to finish with a team high 23 points in what was a valiant second half effort, where he scored 15 points, and nearly led his team to a victory in the postseason as a freshman.

“You know, today I told him to be really aggressive on the offensive end of the floor and when he does that, you’ll see 23 points and six rebounds and things of that nature,” UMass head coach Derek Kellog said.

The loss marks the end of an era for two very good four year players for Kellogg. Forward/center Cady Lalanne and forward Maxie Esho, who were the team’s leading scorers this season at 11.5 and 11.4 points per game, respectively, have potentially finished out their careers as Minutemen, barring accepting a bid to another postseason tournament, something Kellogg is still weighing accepting.

“Those guys have been special and really become part of our family, the UMass community,” Kellogg said. “The other guys are all in line to graduate. They take care of business in the community and the classroom…they are good kids and Cady and Maxie are both great kids that have been great to be around. I’m happy for those guys that they graduated, and now they can go train for the next part of their careers, which I think they will both be able to play somewhere professionally.”

La Salle will now take on top seeded Davidson at Noon on Friday at the Barclays Center. In three of the last four Atlantic 10 Tournaments, the winner of the No. 8 vs. No. 9 matchup has gone on to upset the top seed in the subsequent round. Giannini knows, however, that he’ll have his hands full against the conference’s toughest offense.

“They are not good offensively; they are not very good,” Giannini said. “They are great. They are really elite. I think that KenPom has them something the third-most efficient team in the country.”

The Wildcats, according to KenPom, have an adjusted offensive efficiency of 119.0, good for sixth in the nation, just behind Wisconsin, Duke, Villanova, Notre Dame, and Gonzaga. They enter their matchup with La Salle having won nine games in a row.