Defense goes by the wayside as Terriers fall to Marshall

There’s no statistic to quantify hustle. Or the amount of rebounds a team ‘almost’ had. But if there were, it would point directly to the reason the Boston University men’s basketball team lost its third game of the season Saturday to Marshall University despite a career-high 36-point performance by junior guard Corey Lowe.

In Marshall’s 84-80 victory at Agganis Arena, a game in which the lead changed 12 times and the score was tied 10 times, the Terriers were plagued by both their inability to control defensive rebounds and the Thundering Herd’s interior play, which led to 30 free-throw attempts in the second half ‘-‘- of which they made 25.

‘In just about every situation that we needed to come up with a loose ball, we didn’t. That was the game,’ BU coach Dennis Wolff said. ‘There were two clear possessions in the second half where we had a three or four-point lead, [Marshall] shoots a miss, it looks like we have the rebound, we don’t clear it and they hit a 3. Or get a three-point play in the lane.’

While a criticism of the Terriers (4-3) through the first seven games of the season is that they lack a true post scorer and rebounder, it wasn’t necessarily the absence of such a player that allowed Marshall (3-4) to come up with the game-changing rebounds.

‘We have a good team and we have to become a grittier team,’ Wolff said. ‘Right now, that seems to be where we have to focus, because we’re skilled and we make some plays, but we need to be grittier on the defensive end. And in some positions we need to be smarter on the offensive end.’

BU has proved it can be gritty in its small sampling of games prior, especially in an eight-point win against a much bigger Northeastern University team, but the question is whether it’ll be able to play with the same intensity and defensive focus all season.

Defensive focus, and not only in regard to rebounding, was lacking. The Terriers allowed 80 points or more for the first time since then-No. 11 Pittsburgh netted 80 on Nov. 27, 2007, and it’s just the third time in the last five regular seasons that BU gave up that many points.

Part of the reason for the high-scoring affair could be attributed to Marshall’s hot shooting. The Thundering Herd connected on 50 percent of their shots from the field (58.3 from beyond the arc) and 84.4 percent of their free throws (27-of-32). The other explanation was Marshall’s relentless interior attack.

‘We’ve lost four games in the last three minutes of the game, we’ve been in this situation six times out of seven games and we’ve won one of those until [Saturday],’ Marshall coach Donnie Jones said. ‘We hadn’t gotten the hustle plays, we hadn’t made the free throws and we had turned the ball over.’

Following a first half in which Marshall got to the free-throw line twice and scored 12 points in the paint (along with turning the ball over 10 times), the Thundering Herd made a conscious effort to attack BU’s inside defense. It paid off, as Marshall collected 20 second-half points in the paint and got fouled multiple times while attempting layups or post moves.

Despite BU tallying its largest lead of the afternoon, 72-68, following a pair of free throws by junior Tyler Morris with 3:28 remaining, Marshall netted 16 of the final 24 points in the game – 12 from the free-throw line. Rookie guard Damier Pitts made 9-of-11 from the charity stripe to aid his team-high 20 points, while four other Marshall players reached double digits in scoring.

Three minutes prior to Morris’ free throws, sophomore John Holland (14 points) converted a layup and-1 – during which he was fouled attempting to dunk from just inside the free-throw line – to give BU a three-point lead and turn the arena as loud as it was all afternoon. Lowe followed with a 3-pointer ‘-‘- one of his seven on the day ‘-‘- and was in the midst of a streak in which he made his final five shots from the field.

Aside from Lowe, Morris (13 points, 5 assists) had connected on a trio of important 3-pointers in what was easily his best performance of the season. One of his treys put BU up four with 14 minutes remaining in the second half on a nice feed from Lowe – after the ball passed quickly through freshman Jake O’Brien (7 points, 7 rebounds) and junior Carlos Strong (7 points, 7 rebounds) – another tied the game at 33 to start the half and the third came two minutes after his first to pull BU within one, 37-36.

If Morris’ performance is a sign of things to come, grittiness aside, the Terriers could become a threatening date on opponents’ schedules.

‘I felt like for the first five games of the season, I really lost attention to detail, so I’ve just been out there going through the motions,’ Morris said. ‘I wasn’t really focused on shooting [Saturday], I was just focused on doing whatever it took to help the team win.’

Game notes: The loss marked the first time this season BU dropped a game when leading with five minutes left in regulation. ‘hellip; Saturday’s win was Marshall’s first non-conference road win since 2006. ‘hellip; With his 36-point outburst, Lowe needs just 22 points to become the 28th Terrier to reach the 1,000-point mark. ‘hellip; He also has 177 career 3-pointers – good for a tie for fourth with Chaz Carr. Mark Daly currently holds the all-time record with 202, a mark Lowe figures to pass this season.