Catamounts’ Full White press forces 13 turnovers, keys victory over BU

Sometimes numbers tell the whole story. Such was the case when the Boston University men’s basketball team was outclassed, 70-56, last night by the University of Vermont. A 30-8 Vermont scoring advantage in the paint, or the Catamounts’ 18 second-chance points to Boston University’s two, or even 29 Vermont bench points to BU’s one ‘- you can point to all of them and rightfully say they played their part.

But there’s another number ‘- 13 Terrier turnovers over the final 27:10.

That’s the one to remember.

After the game, BU coach Dennis Wolff talked about his squad’s lack of mental toughness, which was never more apparent than in the team’s performance against a trapping Vermont press. Though they spent at least 15 minutes working on breaking the full-court defense in practice the day before, the Terriers looked confused once the Catamounts unleashed what they call Full White, and BU was eventually dismantled.

‘Extremely disappointing,’ Wolff said. ‘We looked flustered, we didn’t get to the right spots. We were like handling grenades the way we were throwing it around.

‘We had two or three really bad turnovers that seemed to deflate us.’

While it’s easy to point to a brief scuffle between Matt Wolff and Marqus Blakely in the second half as the turning point, the turnovers that Dennis Wolff mentioned marked a stretch that Vermont coach Mike Lonergan singled out as the point when the Catamounts began to seize control. Down by as many as 11 with four minutes to go in the half, Vermont used the press to shrink the gap to four headed into the break.

‘I thought it really started in the first half,’ Lonergan said. ‘We put our Full White on there and then [Blakely] got a steal from the back and then he got another steal when they called a timeout just in time. I thought that got them on their heels a little bit and gave our players confidence.’

By the 5:19 mark of the second half, the Terriers’ backward momentum had pushed them into their own eleven-point hole. The main offender ‘- other than BU’s many self-inflicted miscues ‘- was America East All-Everything forward Blakely.

After one play where BU swiftly broke the trap with a crosscourt pass from Matt Wolff over two closing defenders to a streaking John Holland, resulting in two of BU’s four fastbreak points in the game, Blakely had BU’s strategy sniffed out. With his teammates harassing BU’s ballhandlers into awkward jump passes, Blakely gambled, nabbing four of Vermont’s nine steals.

‘The difference tonight was the press,’ Blakely said.

Indeed it was, as the Terriers’ nine second-half turnovers sealed their fate. And while their 14 giveaways were hardly an all-time high for this group, many came so early in the BU shot clock that it would be difficult to consider it a full-fledged possession. Coupled with the possessions lost on allowing 12 Vermont offensive rebounds, the Terriers have plenty to chew on before their Feb. 11 rematch in Burlington.

‘It’s a long race. But we need to somehow toughen ourselves up. That’s what we need to do,’ Wolff said.