Good morning!
Barring the unforeseen, the UMass men’s basketball team will be 9-3 after it polishes off hapless Siena (2-10) this afternoon at the Mullins Center (1 p.m. tipoff). The real fun begins Wednesday when the Frank Martin Quintet hosts the Duquesne Dukes (8-3) in the A-10 opener.

According to CBSSports.com, UMass is ranked 81st of 353 teams in Division I and Duquesne is 79th. These two foes have split eight games since 2016 by an average score of 82-81, advantage Dukes.

Coach Keith Dambrot has added 10 new players this season including 6-7, 200-pound twins Fousseyni and Hassan Drame who’ve crossed more borders than the Salamanca twins. Born in Bamako, Mali, and educated at Our Savior New American School in New York, the Drame boys played for Saint Peter’s during the Peacocks’ March Madness run in 2022 and last season they transferred to LaSalle.

Dae Dae Grant and Jimmy Clark III have combined to average 37 points a game, and Grant is 69-of-73 at the charity stripe.

As usual the conference’s cream of the crop is Dayton which is ranked 22nd and the only A-10 team in the Top 50. UMass will get a crack at the Flyers a week from Sunday at the UD Arena.

If the CBS rankings hold true, UMass will finish sixth in the A-10 and 21-9 overall going into the A-10 tournament. They are a proverbial bubble team, but don’t book your trip to Phoenix just yet. The Minutemen have made one NCAA appearance in 26 years.

The good news for UMass fans is that the Minutemen are 28th in steals and 94th in field goal percentage defense (40.1 percent). The bad news is they’re 211th in defensive rebounding, and 221st in scoring defense (72.6 ppg).

Those who remember Dr. J and Marcus Camby like to think of UMass as a basketball school, but the UMass hockey team has averaged 5,161 fans this season and basketball has averaged 2,888 fans.

****

Kerry Togneri was home for Christmas, back where she taught power skating at Collins-Moylan Arena. Togneri’s method has helped hockey players and figure skaters to turn tighter and skate faster. She realized there was an untapped market for her skills in South Florida and teaches at the Palm Beach Skate Zone in Lake Worth.

“My focus is blades and accurate edges,” said Togneri, who learned the skill from Amherst College coach Jack Arena and former NHL player Pete Worrell.

“We need these athletes manipulating their blades in a split second. I’ve worked with a 6-foot-6 skater named Elijah Brown since he was 12. Another one is Jeremy Polzer who played for the Cape Cod Whalers and is now at Milton Academy. He’s currently in junior hockey playing for the Whitecourt Wolverines.

“They say I torture them. Some lessons they’re tied to bungee cords. The goal is being bilaterally equal both forward and backward.”

Her clients include NHL linesman Kilian McNamara — “Bigtime Irish. Great family, a heart of gold family” — and Hunter Kerzner who’s currently enrolled at NMH.

“All my athletes can play both sides of the puck and play any position if the bench is short. It’s a mission, and a passion, and the sooner I get to them the more amazing their journey becomes.”

****

The UMass hockey team opens the new year on Friday when it hosts UConn. The Huskies are 4-6-0 in Hockey East, but coach Mike Cavanaugh is in the second year of a six-year contract worth $597K per annum and can ride out the storm.

At the World Juniors in Sweden, UMass center Dans Locmelis scored in Latvia’s 3-2 shootout loss to the Swiss on Tuesday. “We played terrible the whole game,” said the Bruins draft pick. “We didn’t deserve to win.”

UMass goalie Michael Hrabal made 21 saves in Czechia’s 8-1 thumping of Norway on Wednesday, but allowed six goals in a 6-2 loss to Slovakia on Tuesday.

****

Insiders say the Pioneer boys basketball team and the baseball team are cut of championship timber. At this writing Scott Thayer’s Panthers are undefeated (6-0), and Kevin Luippold’s club is coming off a 19-2 season and a trip to the state semis.

****

Former UMass coach Walt Bell was fired as Indiana’s offensive coordinator in October after the Hoosiers scored 17 points in three straight games.

“Walt is a fantastic coach who has tremendous credentials,” UMass AD Ryan Bamford said at his introductory press conference. Bell won two games in three seasons in Amherst and his biggest claim to fame remains being Sam Hunt’s roommate at Middle Tennessee State. Methinks his real calling might be as a sideline reporter in the Sun Conference.

Six teams from the Mid-American Conference played in bowl games this year. UMass would undoubtedly have made several bowl appearances by now if it hadn’t left the MAC in 2015 and had kept coach Mark Whipple.

****

SQUIBBERS: The NCAA did the region’s hockey fans a solid by moving the Northeast Regional to the MassMutual Center. No more drives to beautiful downtown Worcester, Bridgeport or Albany. … Detroit sportscaster Mike Valenti’s gift to Dolphins’ wideout Tyreek Hill: “A vasectomy.” Hill fathered three children with three different women this year, but not his fiance. … The NY Post after the Giants benched Tommy DeVito: Tommy DeMoted. …  WFAN’s Joe Benigno on his golf game: “There are so many guys better than me that got no holes in one, and I got three.”  … Cowboys place kicker Brandon Aubrey has converted all 33 field goal attempts this season but missed three extra points. … Concussions have forced slinger-for-hire JT Daniels into retirement. Daniels played for four colleges in six years — USC, Georgia, West Va. and Rice. … Reds rookie Elly de la Cruz, who became the first Cincinnati Red to steal second base, third base and home since Gresy Neale did it in 1919, wound up with just one vote for rookie of the year. … Richard Neer wants Jethro Tull in the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame on the strength of Aqualung. “The lyrics, tempo changes, poetry, Ian Anderson on one leg playing the flute — that is Bill Mazeroski’s home run in 1960.” … Travis Kelce is 32 yards shy of his eighth straight 1,000-yard season, despite Chiefs fans who say he’s a latter day Samson to Taylor Swift’s Delilah. … Remember Red Sox reliever Joe Kelly? Shohei Ohtani gave his wife a Porsche in exchange for his Dodgers uniform number 17. … Let’s hope it’s a better year for Ronald Funderburke who was driving the Pittsburgh Pirates team bus from Chicago to Milwaukee when a cop pulled him over and arrested him for drunk driving. For that matter, let’s hope it’s a better year for the Cubs, Pirates and Red Sox.

Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for decades in the Pioneer Valley. He can be reached at chipjet715@icloud.com