Six minutes into the second half last night, the Boston University men’s basketball team (12-7, 7-1 America East) had surpassed its point total of the entire first half.
After scoring only 19 points in the first half on seven field goals, the Terriers erupted in the final 20 minutes for 44 points, in a 63-53 win over the University of Maine (8-12, 3-5 America East).
From the opening minute in the second half, when junior forward Ryan Butt hit a three-pointer and sophomore forward Rashad Bell forced a turnover and finished with a slam dunk, it was clear the momentum had shifted.
Led by the Bart Simpson dream duo of senior guard Paul Seymour and Butt, the Terriers hit six three-pointers as part of a 20-4 run, which turned an eight-point halftime deficit into a 39-31 lead.
During that run, Seymour and Butt each hit two threes, while senior forward Billy Collins and junior forward Jason Grochowalski each added one.
Seymour finished the game with 14 points, while Butt, Collins and Grochowalski each had 10. Butt scored all of his points in the second half, while Collins tallied nine of his after intermission.
BU was able to hit from beyond the arc because the guards were able to penetrate into the middle, something they weren’t able to do in the first half. When the Maine defense collapsed, it gave the shooters open looks at the basket.
‘We continued to run our offense and a bunch of guys made big shots for us,’ said BU Coach Dennis Wolff.
The one surprise in the backcourt was the absence of junior guard and tri-captain Matt Turner from the court in the second half. On the heels of a poor shooting performance on Saturday, Turner started and played seven minutes, but continued to struggle and didn’t make it off the bench in the second half.
Wolff said he simply decided to go with other players in the place of Turner.
Butt’s outside shooting was especially important, as it forced Maine 7’0′ center Justin Rowe out on the perimeter. By hitting the first shot coming out of halftime, Butt set a tone for the game that enabled the Terriers to counteract Rowe’s size.
The Terriers ended up shooting 16-32 in the second half, after a horrible 7-27 performance in the opening half.
‘I thought we played terrific in the second half,’ Wolff said. ‘We were unselfish and moved the ball well.’
As has been the case all season, the Terriers were stingy on defense even during their offensive struggles, holding the Black Bears to only 34 percent shooting for the game.
‘[In the first half] we tried on defense, but we were just out of sync on offense,’ Wolff said. ‘In the second half we were able to force them into some bad shots.’
The Black Bears were led on both ends of the court by Rowe, who finished with 11 points, 11 rebounds and six blocked shots. He changed the complexion of the game in the paint and was a big reason the Terriers shot under 25 percent in the first half.
When the three-point shot began falling, BU was able to neutralize some of Rowe’s height advantage by playing the inside-outside game it wanted to.
Over the last 14 minutes, the teams went back and forth, with Maine cutting the lead to 47-46 with 8:27 remaining. BU’s largest lead of the game came on their final score, a slam dunk exclamation point by Billy Collins with four seconds remaining.
Sophomore forward Rashad Bell scored nine points, a quiet night offensively for him considering his recent play. But when Maine cut the lead to one, it was Bell who kept the Terriers ahead.
First, despite giving up four inches, he went straight at Rowe, scoring on a goaltending violation. He scored the next time down the floor on a pretty pass from Butt, to push the Terriers lead to five points at 51-46.
Then after Maine scored and had the ball again, Bell blocked a shot, which led to a Grochowalski jumper and a 53-48 lead with 3:04 remaining. The Terriers then forced a 10-second violation, Seymour hit his fourth three of the night, and BU was in control, up eight with three minutes left.
Coming into the game, there were questions about how the Terriers would respond to their first conference loss, especially on the road against a quality opponent. The questions grew louder with each miss in the first half, but by the final buzzer, the answers were music to the team’s ears.
‘This was a very satisfying win,’ Wolff said.
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