The Boston University men’s basketball team didn’t have the America East Rookie of the Year, but they did have sophomore Corey Lowe and a new-look defense, which proved to be more than enough to overcome a slow opening 10 minutes.
For the first time in five years, the Terriers (1-0) won their season opener Friday, dropping St. Bonaventure University (0-1), 68-57, on the strength of a 17-2 first-half run before 1,205 fans at Case Gymnasium. Lowe’s 28 points tied a career high, while co-captain Matt Wolff returned to the floor for the first time in two years and contributed five steals and a game-high seven assists.
The Terriers found themselves down, 21-15, midway through the first half, thanks in part to the deep shooting of Bonnies’ forward Michael Lee (24 points, 9-of-13 shooting), but over the next nine-and-a-half minutes, the Terriers outscored SBU, 17-5, to take a 32-26 lead into halftime.
Lowe, the America East Player of the Game, contributed 10 of the 17 points, bookending the run with 3-pointers on his way to six treys and a performance that matched his best from last season.
“Lowe was terrific,” said first-year SBU coach Mark Schmidt. “We wanted to make sure he took more shots than he had points. As I look on the stat sheet, we didn’t do a very good job. I thought he hit big shots.”
Sophomores Carlos Strong (11 points) and Scott Brittain (10) and junior Marques Johnson (3) each added a basket as the Terriers gained a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
BU found itself in a hole thanks to a 58.3 field-goal percentage from the Bonnies through the first 12 minutes, while the visibly excited Terriers converted at a 29.4 percent clip – Lowe started the game 0-for-5 from the floor. But BU coach Dennis Wolff let his team play through the early emotions, as a dunk apiece from Strong (a thundering throwdown off a Matt Wolff steal) and freshman John Holland (providing a spark off the bench with 12 points) helped the Terriers shake off any remaining rust.
“Corey had some real good looks early in the game, and it would have been a very easy thing to give in to the fact that you’re not shooting well,” Wolff said. “At whatever point he had to start focusing a little more, and he made a lot of big shots throughout the game.”
“Last year I let [early misses] bother me. This year I just fought through it,” Lowe said. “Coach told me to keep shooting, my teammates told me to keep shooting, so I just had to tell myself to keep shooting.”
While the fans ate up the aerial acrobatics rarely seen from last season’s Terriers, perhaps the biggest victory came from a philosophy modification from Wolff, who abandoned his traditional man-to-man defense for a highly successful 1-3-1 zone that produced 10 steals.
“At times, we attacked their 1-3-1 like we knew what we were doing, and at times we attacked it like we didn’t know what a 1-3-1 was,” Schmidt said.
BU’s commitment to defense forced 20 Bonnie turnovers that resulted in multiple fast-break opportunities. On one play in the second half, Brittain found Holland cutting for a baseline jam. On another, Lowe found Brittain with half of the court ahead of him for an easy bucket. While the ball slipped out of Brittain’s hands, the play indicated the Terriers’ desire to push the ball and get easy buckets.
“That’s what we worked on all summer, just quickening our pace,” Lowe said. “We can outrun a lot of teams because we aren’t really the biggest team, but we have long athletic runners like Scott and [junior] Max [Gotzler]. They can all get up and down the floor better than the other team’s bigs.”
The game was the first of a three-game opening stretch against Atlantic 10 Conference foes. The Terriers travel to Washington, D.C. on Wednesday for a matchup against George Washington University before returning home to face St. Joseph’s University on Saturday at Agganis Arena.
