University of Massachusets Athletics
University of Massachusetts
Siena
Freeman Pilots UMass Past Siena, 78-69
December 23, 2005 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 23, 2005
Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery
AMHERST, Mass. - Playing against the school he grew up just miles away from, Schenectady, N.Y. native, Rashaun Freeman tallied a team-high 23 points in leading UMass to a 78-69 win over Siena on Friday night at the Mullins Center. The Minutemen are now 4-3 overall heading to Madison Square Garden for the Panasonic Holiday Festival.
Senior Jeff Viggiano added 12 points, his third game in a row in double-figures. Junior James Life also had 12 points for the Minutemen. Freshman point guard Chris Lowe had a career-high 10 points and three assists
Redshirt-sophomore Dante Milligan made his long-awaited UMass debut after transferring from Pittsburgh last winter and made immediate contributions. He scored seven points and grabbed eight rebounds in 20 minutes.
The Saints got to within two points at 71-69 as Kojo Mensah (23 points) hit a free throw with 1:33 left. Chris Lowe nailed a running jumper with 1:02 left to make it 73-69. Life then stole the ball with less than a minute leading to Lowe making two free throws with 49.2 seconds left to seal the win, putting UMass ahead 75-69.
Siena cut UMass' lead to just four with less than 10 minutes remaining in the game at 59-55 but Life's 3-point field goal put the Minutemen up 62-55. Viggiano hit another trey to put UMass up 69-58 with 6:12 left.
Freeman got hot early in the second half as he scored six of the Minutemen's first 10 points to put UMass up 54-39 five minutes into the stanza.
UMass took a 44-34 lead into halftime as the Minutemen posted their most points in a first half in two seasons. They led Marshall 46-29 at half on Dec. 20, 2003.
Freeman scored 10 points in the first half as he made all four of his field goal attempts and two free throws. Both teams shot very well in the first half as UMass made 52 percent of their shots (15-of-29) while the Saints were 48 percent (13-of-27) from the floor. Siena's Kojo Mensah tallied 15 in the first 20 minutes.
Siena closed the gap to 23-22 with 8:58 left in the first half as Tay Fisher canned a 3-point field goal to wrap a 16-9 run over a six-minute span - that was as close as Siena would get for the rest of the half.
UMass rushed out to a 14-6 lead in the first five minutes of the game which was punctuated by a Viggiano block, defensive rebound and fast-break thunder dunk.
UMass returns to action on Tuesday night, Dec. 27, at Madison Square Garden as the Minutemen take on St. Peter's at 6:30 p.m. in the first game of the Panasonic Holiday Festival. Host St. John's takes on Columbia in the second game at 8:30 p.m. The winners play the championship game on Wednesday, Dec. 28 at 8:30 p.m. The consolation game will be at 6:30 p.m. All games will be telecast on MSG Network and available with streaming video on www.msgnetwork.com.
