There is no such thing as a moral victory in college basketball, but last night’s game was as close to one as Boston University’s men’s team will have.
The Terriers led Stanford University for the first 25:45 of last night’s first-round Preseason NIT match-up, before succumbing to the Cardinal, 61-57, in a game that went down to the last second.
‘This is not a game we could have won, it’s a game we should have won,’ said BU Coach Dennis Wolff immediately following the game.
Junior forward Ryan Butt led the Terriers with 12 points, while sophomore guard Chaz Carr and senior forward Billy Collins each chipped in with 11, despite both being in foul trouble.
In the end, the Cardinal had more star power in sophomore forward Josh Childress, who finished with 22 points and 10 rebounds, and more height down low, as they were able to wear out the Terriers. Stanford’s junior forward Justin Davis also finished with a double-double, with 10 points and 13 rebounds.
From the beginning, though, it looked as if the Terriers were poised for an upset on the Cardinal’s home court in Palo Alto, Calif.
Collins hit a three-pointer 10 seconds into the game, and the Terriers never looked back in the first half. They would not trail until Stanford’s Davis dunked home a missed lay-up with 14:15 remaining in the game to give the Cardinal a 31-30 lead.
Davis’ dunk was part of a 17-4 Stanford run in the second half that gave the Cardinal a 36-32 lead with 12:23 left as the Terriers started to struggle offensively.
‘We missed some shots in the second half when we had a chance to increase the lead,’ Wolff said.
The Terriers fought back, as they did all night, and took the lead again at the 9:37 mark when Butt converted a three-point play to give BU a 40-38 advantage.
‘We can’t play much better on defense than we did,’ Wolff said. ‘We gave up two or three offensive rebounds that killed us at the end, though.’
The two-point Terrier lead would be their last of the night, as the Cardinal went on a 16-6 run this time to grab a 54-46 lead with just over two minutes remaining.
This winning sequence for Stanford was set up by the exit of Butt, who picked up his fourth foul shortly after giving BU that slim two-point lead. Without the Terriers best inside presence, the Cardinal began picking up offensive boards and converting in the paint.
The Terriers had one last chance, down four with one minute left, but sophomore forward Rashad Bell was called for traveling, negating the best opportunity BU had to get back into the game.
While Bell did not make a field goal and committed several big turnovers, he was active on the boards, scoring all nine of his points from the foul line.
After that, Childress, who played as big as his hair, hit three free throws to ice the game. He was at the center of every big play for the Cardinal and overcame a poor-shooting first half to score 15 in the final 20 minutes.
‘We were trying to limit his [Childress’] touches, and we got away from that in the second half,’ Wolff said. ‘He made some tough threes when we were guarding him.’
BU was able to jump out to a large first half due to its ferocious defense and Stanford’s inept shooting.
The Cardinal missed 11 of its first 12 shots, as the Terriers jumped out to a 12-3 lead with 11:31 left in the opening half. BU also struggled to find an offensive rhythm, shooting a poor percentage and turning the ball over repeatedly.
Nonetheless, the Terriers went into the locker room holding on to a 23-19 lead, although it probably should have been more, given that Stanford was shooting 25 percent from the floor and had committed 11 first-half turnovers.
BU came out with even more fire in the second half, scoring the first five points and extending its lead to nine.
Last night’s game, shown on ESPN2, will most likely be the Terriers’ last nationally televised game until the America East finals, if they get there. Regardless, it showed the rest of the country what teams in the America East already knew: BU is for real this year.
Despite that, and the close call against one of the top teams in the Pacific-10 Conference, Wolff and his players are not satisfied.
‘I’m not going to sit here and be pleased that we came all the way out here and fought hard and almost won,’ Wolff said.
‘And the players feel the same way.’
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