The Boston University men’s basketball suffered a 70-61 loss to the United States Naval Academy at Case Gym on Thursday night and fell to third place in the Patriot League.
Navy’s (13-10, 8-3 Patriot League) victory over the Terriers (12-11, 7-4 Patriot League) extended its win streak to eight games.
BU was coming off a big victory Monday night over Lehigh University and were looking to gain sole possession of second place in the conference. However, the Midshipmen out-rebounded BU 40 to 31 and were able to clean the offensive glass, pulling down 16 offensive rebounds compared to the Terriers’ nine.
“They’re the best offensive rebounding team in the league, and when you play zone you’re not attached to a guy,” said BU head coach Joe Jones. “When the ball goes up, it’s a free ball and you have to be able to get to bodies. Our defensive rebounding is killing us.”
Jones was unhappy with his team’s offensive production. Defensively the Terriers were able to hold Navy to less than 41 percent shooting from the field and 32 percent from three, but still did not pull out the victory.
Overall, the offense was sloppy and Jones said his team has to improve on that end.
The Terriers were only able to shoot 38.3 percent from the field, and their lack of aggressiveness was a key to Navy’s victory, as Navy was able to defend more conservatively.
“If you told me they were going to shoot 32 percent from three and 40 percent from the floor, we got to win that game,” Jones said. “Even with the offensive rebounds, how do we lose that game?”
No Terrier performed well Thursday night. Senior guard Eric Fanning, who leads the Terriers in scoring and rebounding, led the team with 21 points. However, most of his points came at the free throw line, as he was inefficient from the field, shooting just 5-13.
The game was fast-paced, as both teams were trapping on defense throughout the contest. Jones took a timeout two minutes and 15 seconds into the game following a turnover at half-court and eventually adjusted his offensive sets to the hard traps Navy was putting on.
Early on, Navy was able to convert on their threes, shooting 6 of 15 from deep in the first half. Eventually the Terriers adapted, but Jones believes there is room for improvement.
“I just wanted to be more aggressive, we used our three-quarters court trap and didn’t do a great job at recognizing how to stay in it,” Jones said. “I have to prepare us for that better, as we had opportunities where we could of stuck with it, but we were just backing off and we needed to take more chances.”
Part of the rebounding problem for the Terries was the absence of junior forward Nick Havener, who was a healthy scratch Thursday. His rebounding has been key for the Terriers throughout the season, pulling down 5.9 rebounds per game.
“When Nick is doing the things he’s supposed to be doing as a player for our program, then he’ll play,” Jones said. “Until that starts to happen then he’s not going to play.”
BU was undisciplined with its turnovers and unnecessary fouls, committing 15 turnovers and 20 fouls.
“I didn’t think we handled ourselves great tonight,” Jones said. “We should be able to handle ourselves better than we did tonight. They were aggressive and we were passive. We had stretches, but we would miss a key shot. We were outplayed tonight, especially on the glass.”
Not having Havener really hurt. He’s a good rebounder and hustle guy who gets to 50-50 balls. He’s got to feel pretty bad. He could have made the difference between a win and a loss.