With just more than four minutes remaining and a largely impassive Agganis Arena observing a double-digit deficit, Boston University men’s basketball sophomore point guard D.J. Irving moved around a well-placed screen from senior center Patrick Hazel and calmly pulled up to sink a 3-pointer near the top of the key.
The basket was the Terriers’ first from 3-point range all game, and for many in attendance, it was a sigh of relief and a breakthrough for a BU team that had struggled to shoot and score against a suffocating University of Vermont defense.
But Irving’s shot was just that at the time – a nice step for a team that didn’t want to be shut out from beyond the arc, but at the time the ball swished through the net, BU still trailed Vermont 57-43 with 4:01 left in the game. For most intents and purposes, the result of the game wasn’t in doubt – but BU would put it in doubt.
Beginning with Irving’s 3-pointer, BU closed a 17-point deficit to a single point in just over three and a half minutes.
However, it was ultimately not enough for the Terriers (11-13, 7-3 America East) as they could not convert on two 3-point attempts in the game’s final 11 seconds and fell just short of an improbable comeback in a 68-67 loss to the Catamounts (14-10, 8-2 America East).
Above all else, in a game filled with its share of swings and shifts, BU coach Joe Jones was upset with his team’s decision-making throughout the game, poor decisions and plays that wound up costing the Terriers in the end.
“I thought we made a valiant effort at the end, though we made some foolish decisions in terms of putting them on the foul line with foolish fouls down the stretch,” Jones said. “The guys really fought back and played with a lot of heart and pride, as they always do, but we obviously didn’t make enough plays to win it.”
Though the Terriers weren’t able to make enough plays in the very end to win the game as Jones alluded to, they certainly made enough in the game’s final four minutes to get within the grasp of victory.
With Irving’s 3-pointer as the catalyst, BU utilized the hot-shooting hands of several players and a full-court pressure defense to quickly deteriorate what once seemed like an invincible Vermont lead.
Senior guard Darryl Partin scored the team’s next 13 points, nine of which came from beyond the arc, on five offensive possessions.
Irving then continued his work from the 3-point line with another basket which was followed up on the next possession by a pair of free throws from sophomore guard Mike Terry, Jr.. After slicing through what had been a stingy UVM defense for layups on back-to-back possessions, Irving reduced the deficit to a single point with 20 seconds remaining.
A reawakening on offense was far from the only fuel to the Terriers’ comeback – a concerted, high-pressure defensive charge also played a large part.
“We pressed and we turned them over,” Jones said. “They were trying to hold on to the lead and weren’t able to get into their offense late. They were basically just trying to win the game at that point and we got things going offensively.”
In all, the hot-handed offense and the relentless defense amounted to a 27-11 BU run in the final four minutes of regulation.
After a layup from Vermont guard Four McGlynn increased the Catamounts’ lead to 68-65 with 14 seconds remaining, the Terriers still had a chance on the final possession to send the game into overtime.
But missed 3-point attempts from Irving and Partin with 11 and four seconds remaining, respectively, ended the comeback prematurely
A put-back by Terry with 0.1 seconds remaining produced the game’s final score.
In the process of falling behind and trailing by double-digits for almost the entirety of the game, BU was done in by failures in several areas of the game, with none more evident than the team’s lack of offensive execution.
Entering halftime, the Terriers were shooting just 32.1 percent from the field and had as many made shots as they did turnovers (nine).
The team’s two leading scorers – Partin and Irving – were emblematic of these struggles as the two combined to miss 11 of their first 15 shots. Irving, the team’s point guard, was consistently faced with closed lanes toward the basket, something that prohibited the dynamic guard from driving to the basket and getting open shots for teammates.
For Vermont, limiting the Terriers’ one-two punch was paramount in its game-plan.
“We really wanted to stress taking care of those guys,” said Vermont forward Matt Glass. “Obviously, they’re a huge piece to this offense. To take care of them and really trying to limit them was something that we preached [when] preparing for this game. We did a pretty good job until the last five minutes of the game.”
Partin and Irving finished the night as the Terriers’ leading scorers with 19 and 15 points, respectively. After struggling with fouls for much of the first half, sophomore forward Dom Morris added eight points, all of which came in the second half.
On a night in which the Terriers’ early shooting woes and inability to hold onto the ball did them in, for Jones, it’s a simple matter of preparation that was the difference between winning and losing.
“I have great respect for our guys, I love coaching them, they do a great job, they fight, they’re going to fight until the end, I knew they would make a run in this game,” Jones said. “But the simple matter is we have to be prepared to play, and that’s on every coach and every player in there. We were not ready and that’s the disappointing thing.”
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