Onto the semifinals!🚩
— UMass Men's Basketball (@UMassMBB)
. with the step back 3 😮💨 || ||
— Miami Men’s Basketball (@MiamiOH_BBall)
Not their freshman guard. “This one hurts. We’ve got take this blow and look forward to Sunday and look past this,” said Trey Perry. “We’ve got to take this hurt and feel it and if we do get the opportunity … when we do get the opportunity – we’ve got take that anger and go out there and play, everything we’ve got.”
If...when. Yeah, it’s hard to know just what to use at the moment.
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“I try to look at it a different way like, how are we not in it?” coach Travis Steele said. “I’d be very, very surprised if we’re not.”
But he also said the Steele house will not be gripped by anxiety this weekend.
“I’m not letting anybody take my mind. I’m not going to waste one second.
"When you’ve been fired before (at Xavier), listen, you don’t care anymore. You don’t care what people think, you don’t have to be politically correct. I’m going to live life the way I live it, unapologetically.”
🙌 WANT MORE? Check out the recap of UMass upset over Miami (OH)
The issue is if he and his team will be living in the bracket next week. Some of the scheduling metrics might be skeptics. As are some of the bubble teams who would love to see another vacant seat at the table. Miami's No. 54 spot in the most recent NET rankings from the NCAA and 268th-rated schedule on KenPom just got louder.
But the coach who vanquished them is certain.
“They’d better (get a bid). It’d be a complete embarrassment,” UMass coach Frank Martin said. “We’ve created a bad system. All our teams in our league were all assigned a number before the season started. Those metric numbers that are assigned to us, how do we ever change those numbers if we can’t play the teams that are assigned the number 20 to start the season? Because they aren’t scheduling us.”
Leaving that debate aside, there was another vivid message from Thursday.
Miami had its remarkable magic over four months, through nine wins by one possession or in overtime. But it wasn't as powerful as the magic of March. Things happen. They just do.
Here was a 16-15 UMass team that until recently had lost six games in a row. A No. 8 seed that had its own season of continual tight finishes. The Minutemen played nine one-possession games in the MAC, but unlike Miami’s knack for escape, they went 4-5. One of those losses was 86-84 at the RedHawks’ place in late January. Something of a warning shot, it turned out.
They had their share of pain and stayed together, waiting for their chance. Thursday it came, at 11 a.m. “We had nothing to lose,” said guard Marcus Banks Jr. “A conference tournament, everybody’s 0-0.”
Marcus Banks Jr. for the lead!🚩
— UMass Men's Basketball (@UMassMBB)
That’s when he lowered his head to compose himself for several seconds before finally going on, “I’m happy for them. I feel bad for Miami but I’m happy for our guys.”
Meanwhile, what’s a locker room like for a team taking its first loss of the season on March 12?
"Probably a little bit of shell-shock,” Steele said. “We’ve got to stick together. The outside noise has been there the whole year with our group. The whole year. We’ve got become even tighter, more together in these moments. Big events call for big responses. We’ll move on.”
They said they’ll focus on their own improvement, not a committee room.
📝 TRACK: Each auto-bid for 2026 March Madness
“We’ve got a great group of guys that can handle things like this and we’re just going to get better from it,” Suder said. “Our connectivity’s the biggest thing we have. That’s our superpower and that’s not going to change.”
Same for Steele.
“You’ve got to move on, you’ve got to go next play very quickly. That’s life,” he said. “We’ve got to watch the film. You’ve got to dissect it. You’ve got to own it. I think that’s where it starts.
“We’ve got to rebound better. That’s the elephant in the room.”
It was a loss so shocking, even the start time came with questions, with Miami as the No. 1 seed scheduled in the rather odd 11 a.m. slot.
"I’ve never done that in my four years of playing college basketball but they had to do the same thing so that’s all I’ve got to say to that," Suder said.
"I think they just need to look at," Steele mentioned. "I’m not saying there needs to be a change. I’m not going to use that as an excuse. We lost the game, UMass played well, they kicked our tails on the glass around the rim. But yeah, they probably should look into it."
But that's for later. The issue now is if the Miami RedHawks have done enough already.
One could even come up with the scenario that Miami gets a dividend from defeat.
⏮️ REWIND: Final buzzer bench reactions from the last two decades of March Madness
What if the RedHawks are sent to the First Four in Dayton? That's 40 miles from campus. The Miami fans would pour in, so it could be a quasi-home game against a like-seeded team the RedHawks would have a shot to beat.
But first, they have to get invited.
