Chris Lowe was guarding an inbounds pass near halfcourt when he eyed his high school coach, Bob Cimmino, sitting in the front row, just a few feet away. The Mount Vernon grad smiled and winked at Cimmino and just seconds later, he saw Florida’s Nick Calathes drive past him and score a basket to bring the Gators to within five points with 7:20 to go in their NIT semifinal at the Garden.
Lowe’s teammate, Brooklyn native Gary Forbes, responded by drilling a three just before the shot clock expired and then hit a fadeaway to build the lead back to 10 as UMass knocked off Florida, 78-66 to advance to tomorrow’s final, where they will face Ohio State, 81-69 winners over Ole Miss in last night’s other semi.
“We have a New York swagger,” Lowe said.
Which, as the sequence showed, can sometimes be a good thing and sometimes not. Last night, it was almost entirely positive. Forbes, East Harlem native Dante Milligan and Lowe were the team’s top three scorers, as the Minutemen erased a nine-point second-half deficit.
“I definitely think us having so many New Yorkers makes us tougher,” said Forbes, who scored a game-high 19 points in his return to the Garden after playing there in high school at Banneker. “We wore them down in the second half.”
That also had something to do with Florida’s lack of experience. Nearly all of the players who contributed to their two titles are in the NBA, leaving Billy Donovan with a plethora of freshmen and sophomores.
The Minutemen believed that it was more than just their added age.
“We have a different mentality than a lot of other teams from playing on the courts in New York,” Milligan said.
Milligan had a different mentality than anyone on the court, as the Garden honored his brother, Alonzo, at halftime. Alonzo used to work at the Garden and was killed in 2005 and the Garden started a fund in his memory.
“I felt him out there with me,” Milligan said.
“I think they play with great pride, but if you go to Detroit, they say they have great pride. You go to Chicago and the United Center, they say they have great pride,” said Donovan, who is bringing in Christ the King’s Erving Walker next year. “They’re just very, very good players.”
