The Boston University men’s basketball team has bounced back from every tough, sloppy and heartbreaking loss this season — and it’s all been on the shoulders of its defense.
When BU dropped a double-overtime contest to the University of Hartford on Jan. 6, the Terriers responded with a 65-63 win over the University of Maine. When Stony Brook University beat them 68-62 in overtime on Jan. 18, BU came back to beat the University of Maryland-Baltimore County at home, 59-53. And when they fell flat on their feet to the University of New Hampshire last Sunday, the Terriers returned home last night to down SBU, 68-55. In every occasion, it was their defense – ranked 20th in the nation – that stepped up to the challenge.
Come time for the America East tournament, the Terriers will not be able to afford any more low-energy, sloppy play. But for now, it’s encouraging to see one of the youngest teams in the nation respond each and every time to their own mis-steps.
“How we played the game today,” said freshman guard Tyler Morris, “it’s just a mental approach, always for us. Me, personally, when I see the games we win and the games we do well in, we come out and set the tone defensively first. We don’t come out hitting shots and not playing any defense, but we feed off of our defense and those are the games we play the best in.
“They only scored 20 points in the first half, so you can’t do much better than that defensively,” he continued. “Even though there were some things we could have done better offensively, I think we did a good job just staying with our defensive intensity to start the game and I think that carried out throughout the game and it helped us win.”
The Terriers are allowing a miniscule 57.0 points per game in conference play, tops in America East, and 59.5 per game overall, which puts them no lower than 20th in the nation through Feb. 12. That means BU ranks among UCLA, Duke University, the University of Florida and West Virginia University.
BU coach Dennis Wolff can be credited with much of this defensive success, having created defensively able teams during his time at BU. And it’s not just BU that’s noticed their prowess.
“BU is a very good defensive team. I knew this would be a grind,” said SBU coach Steve Pikiell. “I thought they got every loose ball today, I thought every 50-50 ball was theirs. I thought whenever there was a scramble they ended up coming out of the scrambles and scoring.”
Part of the reason Pikiell has such praise for the BU defense is that the Terriers have shut down his leading scorer, redshirt-junior Ricky Lucas, who averages 15.3 points per game. During the teams’ last meeting, BU held Lucas to a season-low six points, and while he scored 17 last night, he was just 5-of-14 from the field and 2-of-6 from line.
“They do a good job of bodying him up,” Pikiell said. “They got three or four different guys who can score, we’re really pigeon-holed. We only got a couple guys who can score points for us.”
The old adage that says defense wins championships is an adage for a reason — it’s pretty much true. And if the Terriers maintain the shut-down defensive pace they’ve kept up all season, they will be in a great position entering the tournament.
“I know that we took a different approach entering this game than we did the first time,” Morris said. “And I think that, defensively, the first time [against SBU] we really weren’t in our stances, which is where we needed to be. So I think our defensive intensity wins the game.”