Today I learned how to step aside.

Times zones and responsibilities have made it increasingly difficult to keep up with this blog and make it relevant. I was recently promoted to managing editor of the newspaper I work for, and with that went most of my free time.

I have done this for almost 18 months. I have changed platforms, and I have interacted with amazing UMass fans from across the country. There was not one morning that I regretted what I posted, but there were too many mornings that I just didn’t have time – and that’s not fair to me or to you.

This blog has served as my notepad of nostalgia at times, while some weeks have just been my regurgitation of UMass news. Between Mullins and McGuirk filled up hours of transition – as I worked my way up from a college-campus cook to a business newspaper’s editor.

For a portion of the day, UMass athletics became my beat again. Three years and almost 2,000 miles removed from the Maroon and White press boxes and sidelines – I had a virtual press pass and byline, which is all I could ever ask for.

I was able to write about coaching changes, a men’s soccer Final Four, football playoff pushes, alumni, the band, myself, an unbelievable trip to the NIT Finals and everything else that reverberates from Between Mullins and McGuirk out into the athletic ether.

Perhaps one day I will be able to come back to my corner of the Internet and start this project over again – or maybe just pick up where I left off. For now, it’s too much. I have always been one to do things all out – for better or worse – and if I can’t, I simply tip my cap at the past and continue with whatever life’s randomness has in store for me.

So with this, I leave you with a fond farewell. I will still be active in other UMass circles (CrooksisRhyming is my screen name on UMassHoops.com: If you’re not already a member, get on there and say hi to the motley crew). Also, if you are ever in the Denver/Boulder area and want to have a beer during a UMass game, shoot me an e-mail: BobMcGovern@gmail.com.

I chose today because it seems symbolic. Tonight UMass plays Memphis and John Calipari. It is the first marquee game for Derek Kellogg, and it is further indication that Calipari loves and supports the Minutemen.

It is teacher versus student under the beautiful Southern stars, which will briefly be colored that nostalgic shade of Maroon at midnight. In front of a national audience, the past and future success of UMass athletics will shine in a way that makes us all proud of our school and our team.

It will shine down on all of us that stand Between Mullins and McGuirk.

And that, my friends, is the intangible beauty of being a fan.

A UMass fan.

The UMass basketball team lost to Southern Illinois last night, meaning the Minutemen won’t be heading to Madison Square Garden to play Duke. There was good and bad in this game, but I’m glad the team – specifically Chris Lowe – got this performance out of the way.

Lowe knows he wasn’t exactly on the top of his game.

“A lot of teams are going to pick me up full-court. Tonight, I didn’t provide any leadership,” Lowe said.

“I didn’t do what (a preseason) all-league player should do, and 10 turnovers, that’s unheard of. But everybody has a bad game, and I’ll bounce back.”

Lowe had 10 turnovers and zero assists in what will probably go down as his absolute worst game in a UMass uniform.

Next the Minutemen have to travel to Tennessee to take on Calipari’s Tigers on Nov. 17. Having some time off will probably help mend some of the mental – and physical – wounds the Minutemen acquired in Carbondale … a place UMass can’t win for some reason.

Now we have to wait on the status of Luke Bonner, who went down with an apparent knee injury. Bonner isn’t exactly the focal point of the offense (or defense, for that matter), but we need all our big men healthy. We don’t have enough depth as it is.

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Travis Ford has the No. 9 ranked recruiting class at OSU.

The Maroon and White take on Southern Illinois in Carbondale tonight … on the line is a chance to play Duke in Madison Square Garden. The Blue Devils slaughtered Georgia Southern 97-54 to advance to the semifinals.

The Minutemen had little trouble with Arkansas-Monticello last night – even though their Division II post players made Coach Kellogg “nervous.”

“It was great to get our first ‘W’ on the season,” Kellogg said. “We were a little concerned and nervous because all reports coming in were they were a good post team.”

Being nervous about UAM’s big men play makes me nervous, coach.

Southern Illinois squeaked out a win over Division II opponent California (Pa.) and only put up 66 points in the game. However, if Kellogg was nervous about UAM’s big men, SIU’s Carlton Fay must have given him nightmares.

Fay dropped 16 points and grabbed 11 rebounds against California.

Across the board, SIU is favored, but some people aren’t ready to count out UMass just yet.

…the 16-team 2K Classic for the benefit of Coaches vs. Cancer is already underway and the favorites to get to the Nov. 20 semi-finals at the Garden is Duke, UCLA, Michigan and Southern Illinois, which all host regionals.

But we wouldn’t count UMass out of the mix.

First year coach Derek Kellogg’s Minutemen, which beat up on Division II Arkansas-Monticello, 90-71, tonight in the Carbondale regional, has a terrific, experienced backcourt in Chris Lowe from Mt. Vernon and Ricky Harris and should give Southern Illinois all it wants tomorrow.

Here comes the first big game of the season – on hostile grounds. Go get ‘em boys.

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Dan Duggan, a former Collegian editor, wrote an article on Anthony Gurley for the Boston Herald.

UMass had recruited Gurley, and he considered taking his game to Amherst after high school. A year later, with Travis Ford leading the Minutemen back to the top tier of the Atlantic 10, Gurley had a second chance. The easy decision was welcomed after such a turbulent year.

“That point and time in my life was so hectic,” Gurley said. “I was already thinking about transferring, then I decided to come back to school, and then my coach passes away.

“I just wanted to get back closer to home and get out of there. I just really wasn’t happy in that situation. Once I finally made my decision, it felt like there was a lot of weight lifted.”

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The UMass field hockey team will take on Syracuse in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Tonight, the Minutemen start their season against Arkansas-Monticello in the 2008 2K Sports Classic benefiting Coaches vs. Cancer. For UMass this is the beginning of a transition year – for the Weevils, this is a second exhibition game.

Last week, UAM received nine votes in the preseason National Association of Basketball Coaches’ Top 25 Poll. According to the team’s Web site, the votes mark the first time since UAM has joined the NCAA the team has received votes in any preseason poll.

UMass should be able to walk through this Division II opponent, but as we saw last week, UMass is still looking for its identity – barely beating Dowling, another D-II squad.

The Weevils have five players taller than 6’6, so the Minutemen will have to start crashing the boards NOW. There are no more excuses, and there is no reason to let the other team’s guard get more than five rebounds (Dowling’s shooting guard had eight).

If no one else remembers – UAM’s head coach, Mike Newell, has been providing some bulletin board material.

“We have a chance to beat UMass,” Newell said.

“Fortunately, we’ve been put into what I think is the weakest region. If we win our first two ballgames, then we’ll be playing in front of Madison Square Garden. I’m confident in saying that this game is the biggest in school history.”

The winner of tonights came will play either Southern Illinois or California (Pa.). I’m warily confident in the Minutemen, but bad things are known to happen in Carbondale.

This weekend, the Minutemen will face UNH and have the chance to put a serious damper on the Wildcats’ playoff hopes. UNH is coming off a loss to Villanova, and need one more win to reach the eight victories needed to qualify for the FCS playoffs.

These will be desperate Minutemen. Their playoff hopes are fading and their only chance to revive them will be a win over UNH.

UMass has losses to Texas Tech, James Madison and Richmond to go with the loss to Maine and will try to get back into the playoff discussion against the Wildcats.

The Minutemen defense had improved in recent weeks, but Maine rolled up 296 yards rushing on them, For its part, the Maine defense held Massachusetts to 311 yards of total offense. Not only that, but the Black Bears intercepted four Liam Coen passes in the game.

If nothing else, I hope UMass plays for pride this weekend and takes down their CAA rivals. The loss to Maine stings a little, but a win over UNH always takes the bite out of a tough loss.

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Hidden somewhere between the pages of UMass athletics – the men’s soccer team won the A-10 regular season title.

Granted, this is a far-off cry from last year’s Final Four run, but it’s still very impressive for the boys to win the conference after a slow start to the season.

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The UMass women’s basketball team pounded Bishop’s University in its exhibition game.

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A little late on this: Gary Forbes was drafted No. 4 overall by the Sioux City Skyforce of the NBA’s Development League.

This is the second time in two years we’ve had a played in the D-League – Stephane Lasme played there last year.

As always, you can check out the UMass Football Blog for all information regarding the Maroon and White.

Go UMass! BEAT MAINE!

The Minutemen played pretty even with an average Division II team last night, winning 91-87, but don’t think the game serves as an indicator for the rest of the season. If nothing else, we got a chance to see what we’re working with and what UMass needs to work on.

First of all: How about that Anthony Gurley?

Gurley put up 17 points and showed us that he will be the third head to the Maroon and White’s backcourt hydra. Ricky Harris ad Chris Lowe showed us what we already knew, and the trio scored a remarkable 58 points between them.

For those non-Math majors out there, that’s almost 64 percent of the team’s total points.

It also appears that Tony Gaffney is going to see a lot of playing time – meaning he needs to lose a little bit of his aggressive tendencies to keep from fouling out against bigger opponents. Gaffney played more minutes (34) than anyone else on the team. He also gave us five steals, so his defense appears to have carried over from last year.

Another positive, Gary Correia is still improving and will see some minutes this year behind Lowe.

Now, the bad:

Where are the big men, and why aren’t they taking any shots?

Gaffney led all forwards with 10 points, but he only took four shots (and luckily hit them all). Aside from that Luke Bonner took three, Terrell Lynch took four, and Matt Hill took one (in limited playing time).

It’s math time again: UMass forwards took 18 percent of the team’s total shots (65).

That is not going to work throughout the season.

Another thing that will not fly is getting outrebounded by a smaller team. How can a crop of Division I athletes get outrebounded by a Division II team – especially on the offensive boards? Bonner played OK, but it’s not acceptable to let another team’s GUARD grab eight rebounds.

Also not great – this is the same Dowling that Travis Ford beat 96-55 three years ago.

I think Kellogg may have said it best:

“When you look at the board in our locker room, it says UMass Basketball, intensity, enthusiasm, passion. No one walks into the Mullins Center and out plays you. Quite honestly that team out worked us and out played us.”

This small, Division II, liberal arts college kicks off a season of questions for the UMass basketball team:

How will the team respond to a new coach and new system?

How will the frontcourt size up?

Can the guards carry the load?

Can UMass duplicate or build upon last year?

That last question is the kicker.

Travis Ford didn’t exactly leave the shelves empty when he took off for Oklahoma State, but he did leave Coach Kellogg with a lot to figure out.

The excellent guard play of Ricky Harris and Chris Lowe is to be expected at this point. Both players have received preseason accolades from different magazines and the Atlantic 10 itself. Lowe is the heart and soul of the offense, and Harris is going to be the motor that keep it running.

Aside from them – what’s next?

The post is going to live and die with Tyrell Lynch and whether or not he’s ready to be a prime-time player
in the Atlantic 10. Apparently he was good enough for SEC ball, but academic questions led to him never step on the court for the Auburn Tigers.

The Republican had him covered yesterday.

“Quite honestly, we need him,” Kellogg said. “We need him to rebound, be a defensive presence and score some baskets, too.”

“It’s always tough after being out a year, but he’s come leaps and bounds from the beginning of the (school) year.”

Complementing Lynch is going to be Tony Gaffney and Luke Bonner. This duo makes me want to believe in magic: I wish I could put Gaffney’s aggressiveness in Bonner’s frame.

I love the way Gaffney plays, and if he can build on what he did last year, there is no doubt that he could be one of the best defenders in the conference. He has the ability to block shots and has a great knack on help defense. Tony is going to make or break the defensive effort in the post this year – here’s hoping he can stay out of foul trouble.

Bonner is the seven-foot question mark. There are times where he looks like he actually knows what he’s doing (see the quarter- and semifinals of the NIT), yet there are other times when he looks like a lost dog, floating goofily around the perimeter. He needs to get down in the post, and he needs to collect rebounds and use his size to get close baskets. If he can do this in reasonable spurts, UMass should benefit in conference play. Perhaps Memphis and Kansas can scare him into shape.

Kellogg told the Collegian that he’s optimistic about the big boys.

“They’ve been very good players in practice. They’re going to have every opportunity to step forward and make names for themselves,” Kellogg said. “If one guy could put up double-digits [in rebounding] and the other came close to [double-digits] that would be great.”

There’s another thing UMass fans are going to have to get used to: normal enthusiasm. Kellogg is not going to shout from the mountains that Bonner is an NBA player and that our guards will play for the Dream Team, like Travis Ford did on a weekly basis. He understands what he has, and he respects the team in front of him. I think this is a good thing for UMass fans: We started to believe in the smoke and mirrors, but there is no Fun House at the Big Dance.

That leaves me with the third guard – Mr. Anthony Gurley. After transferring from Wake Forrest, UMass fans started to believe again. Gurley looks like he could be the fill in for Gary Forbes – an apt ACC scorer that can excel at the Atlantic 10 level. Gurley lacks Forbes’ size, but he has the pedigree to go along with an impressive three-point shot.

Gurley averaged more than 6 points a game with Wake – Forbes averaged about 7 and 9 points at Virginia his freshman and sophomore years, respectively.

All of this needs to be held together by our new coach – a local boy that has returned to his alma mater to make good. Yet, according to the Boston Herald, Kellogg isn’t here to talk about the past … he’s here to deliver the future.

“He never talks about back in the day,” senior guard Chris Lowe said. “He’s trying to teach us how to win and how to play defense. He’s never saying, ‘Oh, we did this and we did that.’ He doesn’t want to talk about that. He wants to talk about the future.”

And even though he doesn’t have Fordesque optimism, he still has an uncanny ability to say all the right things.

“If we’re playing UMass basketball,” he said, “at some point the wins will come, the fans will come, and the national media will be there.”

I hope you’re right coach, but UMass fans need to understand that this is a process. We need to understand that we’re on our last glass of recovery water from the Lappas era, and we’re still getting over the Travis Ford breakup.

We need to understand that UMass basketball is back, and we need to know that someday soon our questions will be answered.

The UMass football team completely dismantled Rhode Island on Saturday and set itself up for a huge game against the Maine Black Bears.

I think Darren Rizzi, head coach of the Rams, said it best.

“They completely outcoached, outperformed and outprepared us today.”

UMass scored on seven of its nine possessions and looked more like that 2006 team than the 2008 squad that has seen its fair share of ups and downs. Liam Coen left his mark on his home state – he had more touchdowns (3) than incompletions (2).

UMass is now No. 10 in  FCS and is No. 100 overall according to Saragrin’s ratings.

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Aimee Bourassa, a former varsity swimmer at UMass, has been hired as the assistant coach for Bryant.

A 2006 graduate of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Bourassa was an assistant swim coach for Binghamton University for the past two seasons. While with the Bearcats, she was responsible for preparing and implementing a rigorous distance training program, as well as assisting in all recruiting, fundraising and community service duties.

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Apparently we lost Chris Pizzotti, a quarterback recruit, to Harvard a ways back. He spoke to Scout about the recruiting process.

I wanted to go to an I-A school, but Harvard was the only Ivy League school I looked at. I was looking at schools like BC [Boston College], UConn, Syracuse and Duke. But when BC told me they weren’t going to offer me a scholarship, I decided that if I wasn’t going to go to BC, I was going to Harvard. I had a lot of offers from I-AA schools like Northeastern and UMass, as well as other schools in that conference. But it was either BC or Harvard.

In the past, the Maroon and White had an answer for the trick-and-flick offense (save for monsoon-like conditions), and were able to roll past its southern rivals. This year, the Rams will go to the air in Kingston Town – however, I’m still not worried about a ‘ting.

Derek Cassidy is captaining the ship for URI and has more than 2,000 yards through the air and 15 touchdown passes. However, Cassidy doesn’t have laser-point accuracy and has tossed 12 interceptions in nine games.

Take note: All of last season, Cassidy had five touchdown passes and 1,025 yards.

Even though the scheme has changed, the results are about the same. The Rams are scoring just over 20 points per game, very similar to the option-earned 20.7 from last year. The yards per game are down almost 20 – this year URI is averaging a total of 326.3 ypg, last year they had 347.9.

Without captain Sean Smalls, the Minutemen are going to have to stand strong against URI’s plethora of average at receiver. The Rams have six players with more than 10 catches, and only Shawn Leonard has more than two touchdowns.

URI’s resume is weak – at best. The Rams barely beat Monmouth, a good NEC team, and beat up on in-state rival Brown. Other than that, the Rams have lost to everyone … including an absolute beatdown by Villanova on 10/18.

UMass, on the other hand, has to win the rest of its games to be considered for the FCS playoffs and is coming off a dominating victory over Bryant. To boot, senior Liam Coen is playing his last college game in his home state – you better believe he’s going to be ready.

My prediction:

• UMass – 28
• URI – 10

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Draft Express had a nice writeup on Stephane Lasme.

Just a month or so off being cut by the Miami Heat, Lasme has adapted himself superbly to European basketball thus far, allowing him to produce impressive numbers in nearly every statistical category, in both the Euroleague and Adriatic Leagues. Lasme has given Partizan a huge boost with his activity on the glass and defensively in the paint, as well as in running the floor in transition and being a terrific target to catch and finish passes around the rim. He’s drawing tons of fouls, making a huge impact as an offensive rebounder, and possibly most surprisingly, is showing a very advanced understanding of his team’s half-court offense with the way he’s moving the ball around the court intelligently.

This could be a very important season in Lasme’s development as a player, and he’ll surely learn quite a bit more playing twice a week against a high level of competition than he would have warming an NBA bench. If he continues to perform the way he has early on, he’ll have quite a few options for himself this summer.