Poor shooting dooms BU against UNH

In a season that has been as maddening as it has been promising, the Boston University men’s basketball team, looking to build much-needed momentum after a win last Wednesday over Binghamton University, fell to University of New Hampshire 60-48 last Saturday in Durham, N.H.

UNH guard Tyrone Conley led all scorers with 26 points in helping the Wildcats (9-12, 3-6 America East) snap a seven-game losing streak against the Terriers (10-13, 5-4 AE).

Poor shooting plagued the Terriers throughout the game, as it has done throughout the season, as the team shot 27 percent from the field (14-of-52). For the season, BU has a collective field-goal percentage of 38.6 percent, ranking them 329th of the 347 Division I men’s basketball teams.

“We got some open looks and just didn’t make them,” BU head coach Pat Chambers said. “We got the right guys shots, but they didn’t fall. But I give credit to UNH, they played hard, defended well.”

A jumper by freshman point guard D.J. Irving knotted the game at 17 apiece with 1:10 left in the first half, but the Wildcats ended the half on a 5-0 run and started the second half on another 5-0 run to open up a 27-17 lead. The 10-0 UNH run proved to be a decisive moment, as BU would routinely threaten to tighten the game, only to see the deficit never get lower than seven in the second half.

By the time the final buzzer sounded, UNH coach Bill Herrion and his squad, known as one of the top defensive clubs in America East, had held Terriers in check, limiting one of the conference’s most potent offenses to a season-low 48 points.

“I thought we pushed the ball whenever we could, but our early offense wasn’t really clicking, it wasn’t flowing,” Chambers said. “We didn’t make some open looks early and I think that hurt us the rest of the game.”

Junior guard Darryl Partin paced BU with a team-high 14 points on 5-of-14 shooting, posting double figures in scoring for the 13th time in the team’s past 14 games.

Entering the game just 23 points away from becoming only the second player in BU basketball history to record 2,000 career points (with Tunji Awojobi being the other), senior forward John Holland struggled for much of the game, scoring 10 points on just 2-of-13 shooting.

Holland’s 10 points was his third-lowest scoring performance this season, and Chambers acknowledged that the attention being paid to Holland nearing such a revered accomplishment may have had something of an impact on his final stat-line.

“I’m sure UNH knew he was approaching a major milestone and they weren’t going to let it happen on their home floor,” Chambers said. “It’s got to affect you and human nature creeps in.”

Junior guard Matt Griffin came off the bench to pitch in eight points and a team-high eight rebounds.

Despite the loss and the team’s pronounced struggles on the offensive end, the Terriers, who have consistently had trouble rebounding, posted a 38-35 advantage on the boards. Additionally, BU held UNH to 60 points and 32-percent shooting, both of which were signs of progress and hope in a game otherwise devoid of both for the visiting Terriers.

BU will look to bounce back from the loss to the Wildcats in a home game against conference-leading University of Maine on Tuesday at Agganis Arena. The Black Bears won the first contest between the teams 65-52 on Jan. 2. Maine is riding a seven-game win streak.

The game will not only figure prominently in the race for the conference title, but after the Terriers’ listless loss on Saturday, it will also be a chance for an injury-ravaged team to continue to improve in a season that has been defined by ups-and-downs.

“We’re not where we need to be at this time. I thought we’d be further along, but it seems one week after another there’s a different injury and we haven’t had the same lineup for a long stretch,” Chambers said. “We need to just keep getting better and try to just focus on that and not worry so much about the wins and losses.”