Entering Wednesday night’s game against Saint Joseph’s University, the Boston University men’s basketball team was looking to continue a run, one that began after starting the season 0-4 and extended over nearly two-week span in which the Terriers didn’t lose.
However, BU was not able to break the .500 threshold for the first time in the young season as it was not able to recover from a late first half scoring drought as it fell to the Hawks 75-68 at Michael J. Hagan Arena in Philadelphia.
For all the strides the Terriers (4-5) made in their four-game win streak, they were not able to maintain many of these improvements and momentum gained in that time.
“We didn’t do a good job tonight,” BU head coach Joe Jones said in a phone interview. “We have to make sure to do a better job of sharing [the ball] – we held it too long, we didn’t move it, we let them lock in on us, we could have gotten better shots. It was a tough game and they’re a good team.”
In a game that featured five ties and eight lead changes through the course of 40 minute of play, control of the game was firmly decided in the Hawks’ (6-3) favor in a four minute span in the final moments of the first half.
The Terriers kept within striking distance of the Hawks for much of the first half, never trailing by more than five points for the first 16 minutes of play.
However, after a layup from sophomore forward Dom Morris that brought BU within two points at 30-28 with 3:45 left in the first half, things unraveled quickly for the Terriers.
Beginning with a jumper from Hawks guard Langston Galloway, Saint Joseph’s scored 10 unanswered points to race out to a 40-28 lead heading into halftime. Over the final 3:30 of the first half, BU missed its final three shots and committed three turnovers, all of which amounted to a scoreless drought.
For Jones, Saint Joseph’s run at the end of the half was brought about by a BU failure in key facets of the game.
“We didn’t do a great job of defending and sharing the ball tonight – I thought those were the two things that we talk about all the time that we didn’t do a great job of,” Jones said.
Saint Joseph’s held on to a double-digit lead for a good majority of the second half, but with five minutes remaining in regulation, BU showed that it would not give up on its fifth-straight win without a fight.
While limiting the Hawks on the offensive end, the Terriers reeled off seven consecutive points, with a layup from sophomore point guard D.J. Irving reducing BU’s deficit to 66-61 with 4:08 remaining, the closest the game had been since the 2:49 mark of the first half.
Ultimately, however, the comeback attempt fell short as the Hawks held on, largely thanks to six points from Galloway in the final 2:15 of regulation, for the win.
Senior guard Darryl Partin, who entered the game as the nation’s third-leading scorer at 23.9 points per game, led the Terriers in scoring for the eighth time this season, netting 24 points in the losing effort. His 33.3 percent shooting percentage was his worst showing from the field on the season.
Irving and sophomore forward Travis Robinson, both Philadelphia natives, scored in double figures with 13 and 12 points, respectively. Together, Partin, Irving and Robinson accounted for 72 percent of BU’s scoring.
On the other side, Galloway led all scorers with a season-high 30 points on 64.3 percent shooting, including a 6-of-8 showing from 3-point range.
Stopping Galloway proved to be problematic and oftentimes unsuccessful for the Terriers for much of the night, with the same applying to the Hawks offense as a whole.
“It is a little disappointing that we didn’t move the ball enough to win and defensively, we didn’t guard well,” Jones said. “They shot 50 percent from the field, 43 percent from 3-point range. It didn’t matter what we played defensively, we had a hard time guarding them.”
To their credit, though, the Terriers out-rebounded the Hawks by a significant 42-26 margin, including a 17-6 edge on the offensive board, with both statistical categories being helped largely by senior forward Patrick Hazel, who pulled down nine rebounds, five of which we offensive boards.
But in the end, it was not enough for a BU team that will look forward to a home contest against No. 24 Harvard University Saturday after learning some tough, albeit valuable lessons against Saint Joseph’s.
“I thought they handled things pretty good,” Jones said. “We just weren’t patient offensively, I thought that hurt us, and we had a couple of big possessions where they scored down the stretch when we needed some stops and we didn’t get them.
“It was a good test for us, but we weren’t able to come out victorious.”
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