Out of all of the college basketball programs in New England, the UMass Minutemen might be the best. The fact that the Minutemen have always been a mid-major program is not reflected by the demand for last-minute UMass basketball tickets or the program’s accomplishments over the years. In fact, cheap UMass basketball tickets have always been hard to find, with the Minutemen having the approach of a major-conference program. That’s why year after year, UMass is one of the best college basketball teams in the Northeast.

Finding Greatness

During the 1960s and 70s, the Minutemen were an unstoppable force inside the Yankee Conference. Between 1968 and 1976, UMass won the Yankee Conference regular-season title eight times in nine seasons. During that time, head coach Jack Leaman set the foundation for what was to come. The program’s success under Leaman eventually led the Minutemen to join the Atlantic-10 Conference in 1982, taking things to another level.

Coach Cal

Without question, the best era of UMass basketball came under John Calipari, who went on to coach in the NBA and at both Memphis and Kentucky. Calipari took over UMass during the 1988-89 season, and by 1992, he turned them into A-10 champs and a Sweet 16 team. Starting in 1992, the Minutemen won five consecutive Atlantic 10 regular-season and tournament championships, sending them to the NCAA Tournament each season. In those five years, UMass made three trips to the Sweet 16, culminating in a trip to the Final Four in 1996.

Wait a Minute

When Calipari left UMass after the 1996 run to the Final Four, the Minutemen experienced a predictable drop-off on the court. But UMass basketball is still a force in the Atlantic 10 Conference and one of the toughest teams to face year after year. Coaches like Bruiser Flint, Travis Ford, and Derek Kellogg have kept the Minutemen relevant and taken them to postseason tournaments, including a journey to the NIT Final in 2008 and a return to the NCAA Tournament in 2014. In other words, UMass remains very much a part of the college basketball landscape.