Lawrence North High School is reeling.
And it’s not just because 2005 Gatorade National Boys’ Basketball Player of the Year, 7-footer Greg Oden, made his much-anticipated collegiate debut against Valparaiso, Saturday.
His high school teammate, Tyler Morris, had quite the Dec. 2 as well, as he led the Boston University men’s basketball team to its third win of the season – a 74-46 rout of St. Bonaventure University at the Reilly Center.
The Terriers (3-4) turned in a dominating performance on both sides of the ball, shooting an astounding 60 percent from the field (10-of-17 on three-pointers) while forcing the Bonnies (3-4) to hit shots at a 32.6 percent clip.
The 28-point win is largest margin of victory for BU since a 92-55 romp of Harvard University on Dec. 7, 2004.
“It was the best game we’ve played in regard to doing the things we’d like to see a team do defensively and it was very similar to what they did on defense at St. Joe’s,” said BU coach Dennis Wolff. “And combining that with a sense of what we needed to do offensively – what we need to do to get each other good shots – it was definitely our best game so far.”
Not only was Morris on fire – 19 points on 7-of-9 from the floor, 5-of-6 from beyond the arc – but fellow freshman point guard Corey Lowe (17 points) and senior co-captain Brian Macon (13) all shot lights-out.
“Every single one of our guards is good with the ball,” Morris said. “We’re able to find each other well and get penetration. With three, four, five good guards, a team can’t really focus on helping on one man or double-teaming another, so it makes for a well-rounded team. You get ample opportunities to score the basketball when you have such talented guards who know how to penetrate to the basket and the option of solid big men down low.”
“We ran the offense a little bit better than we had in our other games,” Wolff said. “We got very good shots for Tyler and Corey and Macon. [Scott] Brittain did a very good job on the boards, he had [a game-high] 10 [rebounds]. We contested shots and we went after loose balls.”
Macon’s 13 points were just one shy of his career high (14, Nov. 26, 2006 against Rider University) thanks to connecting on 3-of-4 shots from three-point land. Macon was hampered with a nagging injury and forced to miss two games (both losses) against Rider and Northeastern University before returning to the lineup in BU’s 74-65 win over Manhattan College. His absence was certainly felt by the team.
“In my 13 years as coach here at BU, I don’t think we’ve had a kid more well-liked by his teammates, so when he’s not involved it kind of saps a little energy from us,” Wolff said. “Now that he’s back involved in the game and tries as hard as he can, it helps everyone. He shot the ball well [Saturday]. He made a key three-pointer at the end of the first half and came right out and made one at the start of the second half.”
Part of what Macon does well is protect the basketball – something BU has struggled with thus far. In their 55-39 loss to St. Joe’s, the Terriers coughed the ball up 26 times, 11 by Lowe alone. Saturday, BU reduced that number to 18 and Lowe to two. The Newton North grad also recorded a career-high in assists, setting up eight Terrier buckets.
“Corey played his best game of the year. Corey’s really gotten better in every game. He played well defensively in this game and went from there,” Wolff said.
BU sprinted out of the starting gate to a 14-2 lead and didn’t allow the Bonnies their first field goal until the 12:03 mark of the first half. The Terriers never trailed and mounted their largest lead (29 points) with 0:35 remaining in the game after a Sherrod Smith (seven points) layup. BU’s lead was 29-18 at the half.
“You’re always concerned at the start of second half when you have a lead that you’re going to lose the lead,” Wolff said. “These guys did a great job of playing like they were still behind and keeping the intensity up.”
Overall, the Terriers completed their longest road stint of the season at a respectable 2-2, including their first win of the season over an Atlantic-10 team – in blowout fashion nonetheless.
“I’m happy that we played a good game [Saturday],” Wolff said. “You hate to affix numbers to this group of kids as young as they are. To be 3-4 now, in a lot of the kids minds it would have been very easily been 5-2.”
“I think it went well, other than we didn’t get into the hotel at 2 a.m. on Saturday, but we didn’t let that affect us,” Morris said. “Coach let us sleep in a little, which was nice. It was a good road trip all-around everyone’s pretty happy about that.”
The Terriers may be lacking sleep this week for another reason, as a primetime contest against the University of Massachusetts looms in the not-too-distant future. Wednesday’s 8 p.m. game is the second half of a doubleheader (the women’s team plays Brown University at 5 p.m.) at Agganis Arena.
“Playing at home and continuing to build on how much better we’ve gotten over the season is going to help us a lot playing [UMass],” Morris said. “Over the past two weeks we’ve become a much better team.”