Leonardo Bettiol scored a game-high 25 points, and eighth-seeded Massachusetts erased a second-half double-digit deficit to stun top-seeded Miami 87-83 in a Mid-American Conference Tournament quarterfinal on Thursday at Rocket Arena.
The RedHawks, who entered Thursday as the only unbeaten team in men’s Division I college basketball, will await their postseason fate with the NCAA Tournament selection show set for Sunday.
“We’ve got to rebound better,” Miami coach Travis Steele said. “We’ve got to take care of the ball. We had a couple kind of crucial turnovers down the stretch in the last four minutes. Missed some shots, too. But it is what it is, man.
“I told our group, ‘Listen, our journey is still going to continue. This isn’t the end of it.’ It’s not the goal of what we wanted to do, obviously. One of our goals was to win the MAC Tournament championship. And unfortunately we’re not going to be able to do that because we couldn’t get past UMass.”
The RedHawks were the fifth men’s Division I program this century to go undefeated during the regular season. Now it’s the second to get tripped up in its conference tournament. St. Joseph’s lost to Xavier in the 2004 Atlantic 10 quarterfinals but was still a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Miami was the first squad since Gonzaga in 2020-21 to not have a loss going into a conference tournament.
Brant Byers led Miami (31-1) with 17 points. Eian Elmer added 16 points, Antwone Woolfolk scored 14 and Peter Suder and Luke Skaljac chipped in 10 apiece for the RedHawks, who had entered the tournament unbeaten in MAC play at 18-0.
Marcus Banks added 18 points and Jayden Ndjigue had 16 for the Minutemen (17-15), who were simply more physical near the basket. They outrebounded Miami 41-24 and scored 54 points in the paint.
Massachusetts advanced to Friday’s semifinal against either Toledo or Bowling Green.
Miami took a 39-37 lead into halftime after Woolfolk finished an alley-oop bucket from Skaljac at the buzzer, capping a tightly contested opening half that featured 12 lead changes and 10 ties.
Back-to-back baskets by Skaljac pushed the RedHawks’ lead to 45-38, and consecutive 3-pointers from Justin Kirby and Suder stretched the margin to 52-42 with 14:37 remaining. Miami appeared to have momentum as Massachusetts piled up seven team fouls with more than 12 minutes still to play.
But the Minutemen answered with their toughness inside and on the glass.
After Miami built its largest lead at 69-58 on Elmer’s 3-pointer with 8:33 left, Massachusetts stormed back behind Bettiol and Ndjigue. The Minutemen used second-chance opportunities and physical play in the lane to chip away, eventually closing on a 13-2 run that tied it 71-71 when Ndjigue scored on an offensive rebound with 5:22 remaining.
Atlason came off the bench to bury a 3-pointer that gave Miami a 74-71 edge with 5:06 left, but Massachusetts kept coming. Banks answered with a long 3-pointer to put the Minutemen back in front 77-76 with 3:54 to play, and Skaljac responded with a tying 3-pointer at the 3:03 mark.
The teams traded blows into the final minute. Suder hit a jumper to tie it at 81 with 50 seconds left, but Daniel Hankins-Sanford answered with a layup for Massachusetts with 29 seconds remaining. Banks then came up with a steal on Miami’s next possession and calmly knocked down four straight free throws in the final 18 seconds to seal the upset.
Miami had one last chance after Byers was fouled on a 3-point attempt with 9.9 seconds left and made two of three free throws to cut the deficit to 85-83. But Banks hit two more from the line with eight seconds to go, and Skaljac’s last-second 3-point try missed.
Massachusetts shot 52.2 percent from the field and finished with 17 offensive rebounds, turning its interior dominance into 23 second-chance points. Miami shot 48.3 percent and made 12 3-pointers, but the RedHawks could not overcome the rebounding disparity.
This story will be updated with quotes.
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