Closing out a two-game homestand, the Boston University men’s basketball team got the best of Loyola University Maryland by a score of 73-60 Saturday at Agganis Arena.
Playing their third game in five days, the Terriers (11-14, 7-7 Patriot League) broke a four-way tie in the Patriot League with the victory, and they are now tied for possession of fourth place in the standings with American University.
Although for much of the game it was a back-and-forth affair, the Terriers were able to pull away due to excellent free throw shooting and defense that held Loyola (10-15, 6-8 Patriot League) to 24.1 percent shooting in the second half.
“The key thing for us is we have to show maturity,” said BU coach Joe Jones. “Tonight was good because they made a run at us, and we fought back.”
Both teams started off hot, as through the first five minutes, the Greyhounds and Terriers were shooting 5-for-8 and 5-for-7 from the field, respectively.
Despite playing to a first-half tie, the Greyhounds played strong defense from the opening tip. They were able to hold the sharp-shooting Terriers, who are the fourth-best scoring offense in the Patriot League, to 40 percent shooting from the field in the first half.
It took until the second half for BU to start to hit its stride on both ends of the floor.
Early in the second half, sophomore center Blaise Mbargorba, who has been seeing increased playing time recently, slammed the ball home to give the Terriers a 41-38 lead. This is on the heels of his monster dunk against Lafayette College on Feb. 9 that earned him national recognition and an appearance on “SportsCenter.”
“I’m really pleased with Blaise,” Jones said. “He had three points, four rebounds in 19 minutes — that’s a productive game to me. He’s been much more focused, and I think defensively, he’s doing a better job.”
Ten minutes into the second half, BU had held Loyola to just 2-of-12 shooting from the field and 1-for-5 from distance. With 12:35 to go, sophomore guard Cedric Hankerson netted a crucial four-point play that put the Terriers up by double digits, their largest lead of the game to that point. BU didn’t look back and cruised to a crucial conference win.
It was a team effort for BU, as it had four players in double figures. Hankerson led all scorers with 20 points, which was his eighth 20-point contest this season. Sophomore guard Eric Fanning added 15 points, and junior guard John Papale and freshman guard Cheddi Mosely chipped in 12 points each.
“We have a lot of guys that can score,” Jones said. “You bring Fanning off the bench — he’s capable of 20. We have six guys that can go for double figures any night, and I don’t know how many teams in our league have that.”
Hankerson, who is averaging a team-high 16 points per game — good for fourth best in the Patriot League — was due for a big game following a stretch of games that saw Fanning take over as the team’s leading scorer. Most recently, Fanning led the team with 19 points in its previous 76-69 loss against Colgate University on Wednesday.
Solid free-throw shooting, especially during the second half, also helped the Terriers secure the victory. They shot 23-of-32 from the line for the game, including 15-20 in the second half. Both Hankerson and Fanning had 10-plus attempts from the charity stripe.
“Over the course of the season, I haven’t really shot well from the line,” Hankerson said. “So I’ve definitely been trying to put in extra free throws, like in practice, and it paid off today.”
In certain aspects of the game, the Greyhounds played like the team that they have been all season. They are not typically known as a great shooting team, boasting the worst field goal percentage in the Patriot League (38.5 percent), and this matchup was no different.
The Terriers were able to hold them to 36.2 percent shooting for the game. Guard Andre Walker, who led the team with 13 points and six boards, shot a poor 5-for-16 from the field.
Despite being ranked statistically as the second-best rebounding team in the league, Loyola was outrebounded by 14 in this one. For a team that holds the best rebounding margin of any Patriot League squad, outrebounding opponents by 1.4 per contest, this was one of its worst games of the year in that regard.
With the playoffs looming, BU now heads on the road for the final time this year. Wednesday, it will take on American University, and Sunday, it will face off against Bucknell University.
“If we can do something on the road here, it can kind of give you some momentum going into the playoffs,” Jones said. “We want to win so maybe we can get a home court game in the playoffs, and also just because you want your guys feeling good.”
Nick Neville is a junior in COM studying journalism and the Sports Editor of the Daily Free Press. When he's not making a paper on Beacon Street, you can catch him working as a Sports Correspondent for the Boston Globe or helping to produce BU's only professional sports talk show, Offsides. Follow him on Twitter: @n_nebs95
