Last second shot ends NCAA hopes, puts Terrier men in NIT

Vermont’s sophomore guard David Hehn spun toward the baseline and right into Catamount basketball lore on Saturday.

With BU guard Chaz Carr draped all over him, the shot clock at one second, and his team trailing by a point with 5.6 seconds remaining in its season, Hehn hit a baseline jumper to send the Catamounts to their first NCAA tournament in the 103-year history of the men’s program.

The shot was the only basket for either team in the final 3:15 and capped a furious final 10 minutes in which neither team led by more than four points.

Carr had a chance to answer Hehn’s shot, but his three-pointer at the buzzer bounced high off the rim and the over the top of the backboard.

‘I don’t know if it was a particularly well-played game, but it was an extremely hard-fought game,’ BU coach Dennis Wolff said. ‘They made one more play than we made and they deserve to be going [to the NCAA tournament].’

While Hehn hit the game-winner, the story of the game for Vermont was junior center Matt Sheftic. Sheftic led the way with 23 points and picked up the slack for America East Player of the Year Taylor Coppenrath, who was in foul trouble for most of the game.

Sheftic, who sat out for most of last year after losing his younger sister to a brain aneurysm, dominated the Terriers down low. Before Hehn’s final shot, Sheftic scored the team’s previous six points and answered every BU comeback with a basket. He was rewarded with the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player award.

‘Sheftic had a great game, he’s a big body and a little more athletic than he looks,’ said BU junior forward Jason Grochowalski.

With Sheftic leading the way, the Catamounts controlled the paint, out-rebounding the Terriers 37-27 and out-scoring them 7-2 on second chance points in the second half.

‘Vermont out-toughed us today just like they did up in Vermont,’ senior forward Billy Collins said, who saw his BU career come to an abrupt and unexpectedly early end.

Just as they did in the semifinals against Northeastern University, BU fell behind early, and spent the rest of the game trying desperately to catch up. After junior forward Ryan Butt scored the game’s first basket, the Catamounts scored 16 in a row to jump out to its largest lead of the game.

BU cut the lead to eight at halftime, but began its comeback in earnest in the second half, led by senior guard Paul Seymour. Seymour scored the Terriers’ first 11 points in the second half in 4:12. A fast break layup cut the deficit to one point at 34-33.

Vermont went on a mini-run led by Coppenrath and Sheftic to bump the lead back up to seven at 43-36, but BU had one more run left in them. Butt twice gave the Terriers leads with a layup and a long three-pointer, BU’s last basket of the game, at 3:15, which gave them a 55-54 lead, setting the stage for Hehn’s heroics.

‘It’s a tough thing in games like this to be running uphill the whole game,’ Wolff said. ‘That start was reminiscent of the start we had in the Northeastern game, and we were lucky to recover from that and unfortunately today we weren’t able to recover.’

Mistakes down the stretch made it impossible for the Terriers to complete their comeback, especially after expending so much energy to get back in the contest. In the final three minutes, the team missed all three shots they took, committed two turnovers, and were victimized by a questionable offensive foul call on Butt.

With less than 40 seconds to go, with the ball and up one point, Seymour appeared to have a lane to the basket, but dribbled the ball out of bounds, setting up Vermont’s winning possession. It was an unfortunate final play for the senior who played a major role in bringing the team back in the second half. He finished with 16 points in the game.

For the Terriers, Grochowalski continued his strong tournament play, scoring 11 points, including three big shots in the second half, which kept BU in the game. Against Northeastern, he led the way with 22 points and eight rebounds. For his efforts, the Shrewsbury native was voted onto the All-Tournament team, along with teammate Rashad Bell, Vermont’s Coppenrath and Sheftic, and Northeastern’s Jose Juan Barea.

Despite the loss, and Bell’s pre-tournament assertion that the season would be a ‘waste’ if the team did not return to the NCAAs, Wolff certainly felt otherwise.

‘I’m as proud of my team as I was when I was sitting here last year [after we won],’ Wolff said. ‘We didn’t have our ‘A’ game today and we still fought like crazy and put ourselves in a position to win.’

While the heartbreaking loss to Vermont was ‘hard-fought’ in the eyes of Wolff, it was the game that sent the Terriers to the finals that featured some real fighting.

Despite falling behind 28-14 early in the game, the Terriers battled back to defeat the Huskies of Northeastern, 71-61, in last Monday’s America East semifinals.

The game was as intense and physical as any among the two cross-town rivals, and featured five technical fouls, 52 personal fouls and a lot of bad blood.

Grochowalski led three Terriers in double figures with 22 points, while Carr chipped in with 13 and Bell added 12.

The Terriers were able to cut a 14-point lead to four by halftime, behind the aggressive play of Grochowalski and Bell. The pair was active down low and went a combined 18-19 from the free throw line for the game.

The turn in the game seemed to come when BU switched from a man-to-man defense into a 2-3 zone, forcing the Huskies to beat them from the outside.

‘They went into a zone which made us shoot bad shots,’ NU coach Ron Everhart said. ‘BU has been through the wars, they showed a lot of composure and toughness.’

‘I noticed in the first game [NU-Maine] that when Maine went to the zone it changed the rhythm of the game,’ Wolff said. ‘We had to do some things to keep them off-balance.’

And it worked.

Northeastern shot only 25 percent in the second half and the Terriers continually made big shots to seal the victory. Grochowalski and Seymour each made big three-pointers in the final five minutes. Seymour’s put the team up 61-53 and was the only shot he made all game, but it was a huge one.

The game had all the elements of a typical BU-NU battle, with hostile crowds, a competitive game and double technicals. Minutes after BU junior Matt Turner and NU’s Aaron Davis received T’s for a shoving match, Barea and Grochowalski received technicals after Barea slapped Bell in the face following a charging call. That play turned the game around, as it was the fourth foul on Barea and relegated him to the bench.

At the time, NU was up 41-39. Following the technicals, the Terriers ended the game on a 32-20 run.

Just one day prior to the win over NU, the Terriers christened the floor at Walter Brown Arena with a sloppy 75-61 victory over No. 8 seed University of New Hampshire in the quarterfinals.

Bell led the Terriers with 17 points, while Carr (15) and Turner (13), combined for 28.

‘Opening round games are always tough,’ Wolff said. ‘I’m not thrilled with the way we played … but the defensive effort was pretty good.’

Once again, the Terriers were having trouble guarding Ben Sturgill, who had eight points in 12 minutes, before being lost for the remainder of the game with a shoulder injury. Sturgill’s injury occurred with the Wildcats up 16-15, a lead that would not last without him.

After Sturgill went out, BU’s post players, namely Bell, were able to have their way in the paint, and quickly went on a 10-0 run that opened up the road to victory.

ST. JOHN’S AWAITS IN NIT

The Terriers might not be going to the Big Dance, but at least they got an invite to the junior prom.

Coach Dennis Wolff and his team found out late Sunday night that they would be heading to the National Invitational Tournament to face St. John’s University (16-13) on Wednesday night at 7:30 at SJU’s Alumni Hall in New York City. Brackets were not yet available.