Cat-astrophe

On the roulette wheel of the Boston University men’s basketball season, it’s truly been a gamble guessing what team will show up on a given night. That gamble has been compounded significantly given the recent season-ending injuries to two of BU’s top five scorers (juniors Tyler Morris and Carlos Strong), but Wednesday night against the University of Vermont, the tiny, white tumbling ball nestled between the grooves of an all-too-familiar slot – lack of toughness, both mentally and physically.

Different than many other problems on that wheel – trouble scoring in the paint, rebounding deficits, streaky 3-point shooting – aggressiveness seems to be the easiest to fix, yet has plagued BU most of the season. The Terriers’ timid play was once again on display in a 70-56 loss to the Catamounts in a game they led by as many as 11 points. The loss was BU’s sixth in its last seven games and ninth straight regular season loss at Agganis Arena.

‘Our lack of composure and our lack of toughness when the game was on the line and the way we totally caved in was extremely disappointing,’ BU coach Dennis Wolff said. ‘We weren’t tough around the basket, we weren’t solid enough running our stuff and we were disorganized trying to get the ball inbounds. Blame-wise with me, it was bad.’

Sophomore forward John Holland led all scorers with 19 points (including a ridiculous 30-foot 3-pointer with the shot clock at one), but the Catamounts boasted four players who reached double figures, led by senior forward Colin McIntosh (17 points). UVM’s star forward, junior Marqus Blakely, was not in the starting lineup for the first time all season because he was late to practice earlier in the week, but seemed unfazed by the benching, scoring 15 points, blocking three shots and gathering four steals when he took the court.

In a game that could have vaulted the Terriers (6-9, 1-2 AE) above the .500 mark in conference competition – something not many expected following the way BU played entering league play and the loss of redshirt junior guard Tyler Morris and junior guard Carlos Strong – BU capsized after attaining a 26-15 lead with 3:59 remaining in the first half. Following a fastbreak bucket by Holland, UVM (10-6, 1-2) chipped into BU’s advantage and outscored the Terriers 55-30 the rest of the way. Senior guard Mike Trimboli had 11 of his 13 points in the first frame and McIntosh took over with 15 of his 17 once the game got out of hand.

‘Even with it being back-and-forth, which has been our M.O., if we get down five or six or seven we start to act like the game is over and that’s a bad way to act,’ Wolff said. ‘We have to figure it out and I’m the one responsible for it.’

What had been a point of emphasis for the Terriers in their previous two conference games was starting offense in the post, but due to Vermont’s active man-to-man defense, it was hard for BU to initiate consistent post touches.

It didn’t matter much in the first half, as the Terriers shot 6-of-12 from beyond the arc, but BU paid dearly in the second as the outside shooting went cold (2-of-7). The Catamounts ended up outscoring BU 30-8 in the paint. In addition (and granted the number is slightly skewed because Blakely came off the bench), BU’s bench was outscored 29-1 on the evening.

After two consecutive impressive performances, junior forward Scott Brittain struggled, scoring eight points on 3-of-8 shooting and grabbing only one rebound in 30 minutes, which didn’t help BU’s rebounding deficit (32-21). Both Brittain and freshman forward Jake O’Brien (11 points) got into foul trouble in the second half, but Wolff decided not to re-insert freshman forward Jeff Pelage (who logged three minutes in the first half) because Wolff said the rookie didn’t run hard enough on a fastbreak opportunity.

In addition to the previous success the Terriers had starting offense in the post, BU had also been executing a fairly stringent matchup zone. The zone broke down in the second half, however – whether due to fatigue or frustration or Vermont’s coaching is uncertain – and it led to 11 second-half fouls by BU (nine of them shooting fouls, off which UVM scored 13 points).

‘While we did a better job in the first half, as the second half went along, we just played on [Vermont’s] backs. We didn’t get around in front of them even though we were repeatedly telling [our players] to get around in front of them,’ Wolff said. ‘It gives us a starting point to work on.’