While most students fought shopping lines and traffic jams over the Thanksgiving break, the Boston University men’s basketball team faced a much more difficult challenge.
The two teams Dennis Wolff’s squad played over break, St. Joseph’s University and Boston College, each have a player who will be mentioned in All-American debates and shown on many highlight reels before the hoop season comes to a close.
St. Joe’s senior Jameer Nelson, a pre-season All-American, is arguably the best guard in the country and anchors one of the top backcourts in the East with Delonte West. BC sophomore Craig Smith garnered Rookie of the Year honors in the Big East last year and is teamed with senior Uka Agbai to form one of the most physical and talented frontcourts in the Northeast.
‘This is a good stretch of basketball for our team,’ Wolff said. ‘My thought process with the whole part of this season is let’s play the best teams and see we’re we are at. This is a learning process.’
The Terriers contained both players on the stat sheet, as they each scored 13 points in the two BU losses, but their presence was felt elsewhere on the court and glimpses of what makes each a special player were on display.
On Tuesday night, 1,669 fans at Case Gym saw Nelson’s skills firsthand, but the BU defensive rotation of guards Chaz Carr, Matt Turner and Kevin Fitzgerald kept him in check for most of the night with a man-to-man defense. Nelson ignited the fans and his team with six of the Hawks’ first eight points on two three-pointers. Both shots came off out-of-bounds plays underneath the basket, where he was able to exploit the zone defense BU runs in those situations.
Nelson couldn’t find his shooting touch for most of the rest of the night, as he went 4-12 from the field, including 2-8 from beyond the arc. Carr and company also shut down his dribble penetration in the paint throughout the night.
‘Coach [Wolff] just wanted me to stay in front of him,’ said Carr, who drew the bulk of the defensive time against Nelson. ‘He’s a great player at handling the ball. I’m just as quick so I just wanted to stay in front of him and not let him penetrate.’
On only one occasion did Nelson beat his defender on a drive to a basket. It came with 5:18 to play, when he juked around Turner to draw a foul and score the basket to extend the Hawks’ lead to 16 points.
‘He’s a heck of a player. When he gets into the lane and forces you to collapse, he’s as clever as anyone I’ve seen at knowing where the guys are and getting the ball to them,’ Wolff said. ‘I thought we did a pretty good job of staying with our own men so that we weren’t forced to help as much as I thought we might have to help.’
But Nelson filled up the stat sheet in other areas. He dished out eight assists and grabbed seven rebounds and five steals. He also helped create shots for West, who had a game-high 20 points.
‘I think [West] benefits, but I also think in his own right he is a heck of a player,’ Wolff said. ‘He shoots when he should shoot. He passes when he should pass. They all play like that, which is tribute to their coaches.’
Wolff stressed that the experience of playing guards such as Nelson and West will help his team in conference play. The America East is chock full of good guards, and the University of Vermont’s T.J. Sorrentine, Stony Brook University’s D.J. Munir and Northeastern University’s Jose Juan Barea will all pose challenges for BU come January. With experience playing against the Hawks’ guards, the Terriers’ should have more success with those tough backcourt matchups, Wolff said.
‘I’m not sure I have any first round NBA picks [like Nelson] so I think we had a match-up problem right there. I thought that Delonte West is a guy that can play in the NBA,’ Wolff said. ‘I thought our guards played well and we have guys that are good, but I don’t know if they’re players of that caliber.’
Saturday afternoon at Conte Forum presented a different challenge for the Terriers. BC’s big men put junior Rashad Bell, sophomore Kevin Gardner and senior Ryan Butt (who played with a broken nose sustained against St. Joseph’s) to the test.
The Terriers played a 2-3 zone defense the entire game to stop Agbai and Smith from hurting them inside. That part of the plan was executed successfully as Smith went 6-9 from the field, but scored only 13 points and didn’t grab an offensive rebound. Agbai only went 4-6 and finished with 10 points.
The rest of the BC lineup, though, exploited BU’s zone defense. As a team, the Eagles shot 60 percent from the field (28-47) and 5-12 from three-point land.
BC also passed all over the zone defense, finishing with 22 team assists and just eight turnovers. The Eagles didn’t commit their first turnover until there was 17:30 to play in the second half. BU was doubling down on the inside presence as part of the zone, but as a result, the guards playing at the top of the zone played more compressed and less aggressive.
But Wolff didn’t use that as an excuse after the game.
‘From a coaching standpoint, whether you’re playing man [defense] or zone you need to be aggressive in what you’re doing,’ he said. ‘We weren’t quite aggressive enough in guarding on the perimeter.
‘I think that Agbai and Smith were a huge concern,’ Wolff continued. ‘I was concerned about them turning the flex [offense] over and getting the ball inside and getting our guys in foul trouble. We know the two inside kids are two of the better inside players in the Big East.’
All the Craig Smith fans in attendance were treated to a few highlights two one-handed power slam dunks on baseline cuts and a lowlight Smith jawing at Bell with nine minutes left to play in the game and BC already up big.
Smith’s greatest contribution, however, may have come in his work on breaking BU’s full-court pressure. The Eagles’ press break relies on Smith being able to beat a smaller guard off the dribble and power the ball up to a half-court set. Unfortunately for the Terriers, he did that to perfection.
‘He’s blessed with that ability,’ said BC coach Al Skinner. ‘To be that big, he’s quick and fairly blessed as a good ball-handler. I think it’s extremely difficult to take it from him particularly if you’re a guard and all you can do is reach and foul him.’
Despite the two defeats, the BU coaching staff and players said they realized how much experience they gained from a Thanksgiving break they spent playing All-American caliber players and teams with enough talent to make it to the NCAA Tournament.
‘The coach schedules those games so we can handle pressure and be able to play top-notch teams like that so when it comes to the end of the season we can be ready,’ Carr said.
For now it’s back to playing teams and players that aren’t on the cover of every pre-season college hoops magazine. BU will look for its first win of the season at home tonight against Youngstown State University at 7 p.m. in Case Gymnasium.
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