University men’s basketball traveled to West Point, New York looking to sweep the season series with the Army Black Knights after taking them down at home earlier this season. Despite early scoring problems, the Terriers handled the Black Knights, holding a double-digit lead for a majority of the game and leaving with an 80-66 win.
Both teams entered Wednesday night’s game on a streak of good results. The Terriers (14-10, 8-3 Patriot League) entered play having won six of their last eight games, while the Black Knights (11-11, 6-5 Patriot League) had rattled off six straight wins prior to the matchup.
The Terriers started off slowly, scoring just two points after the first five minutes of play and eventually fell behind 11-5 with 13:20 to go in the half.
BU Head Coach Joe Jones cited Army’s defensive effort out of the gate as the reason for the slow start.
“They’re a really tough hard-nosed team,” Jones said. “They just played really good defense against us.”
However, thanks to an 18-4 run, BU was able to claw out of the early hole and the Terriers entered halftime with a 34-23 lead.
Following the game, Jones said ball movement and spacing the court were key in getting back into the game.
“We kind of needed to move the ball a little bit better, look for our opportunities a little bit better,” Jones said. “We were kind of rushing it at times and that hurt us.”
A balanced scoring attack was another reason for BU’s successful comeback against Army. Nine players scored for the Terriers before the end of the first half and all 10 that Jones played scored at least once by the end of the game.
When asked if it was a point of emphasis to get everyone involved on offense leading up to the game, Jones said that it’s a goal for the team every game.
“We go into every game trying to move the ball, trying to play together, that’s how we want to play,” Jones said. “We have a lot of guys that are effective in their own way. We try to get guys to be confident in what they do and that’s how we like to play, and tonight we were able to get a lot of guys to contribute.”
It was more of the same from the Terriers in the second half as they maintained their lead through the entire second half, not letting Army pull within more than nine points of the lead before closing out the game with a final score of 80-66.
BU senior forward Max Mahoney, who was averaging a team-leading 15.4 points per game leading up to Wednesday’s game, was the lone player for the Terriers to not score in the first half. However, Mahoney ended the game with 13 second-half points to go along with seven rebounds, three steals and one block.
Mahoney didn’t need a pep-talk in the second half to get going, according to Jones.
“We didn’t say anything to him,” Jones said. “Tonight, they were double and triple-teaming him and that’s why he didn’t score.”
Junior guard Javante McCoy led the Terriers in scoring, putting up 20 points on 5-of-11 shooting, as well as going a perfect 8-of-8 from the free-throw line. Sophomore forward Walter Whyte added an additional 12 points and six rebounds.
Senior guard Tommy Funk led the way for Army, scoring 24 points and dishing out six assists. With 8:39 left in the second half, Funk broke the Patriot League all-time record for career assists on a pass to senior forward Matt Wilson.
Jones had nothing but praise for the senior guard following the game.
“He’s outstanding, he’s gotten better and better every year,” Jones said. “I’ve got a ton of respect for him and their entire staff.”
Wilson put up a double-double for the Black Knights, putting up 24 points and 10 rebounds.
With the win, BU maintains its position in second place in the Patriot League, just one game behind Colgate University (18-6, 9-2 Patriot League).
Army falls to sixth in the Patriot League standings with the loss.
The Terriers will look to continue their run of good form this Saturday as they play host to the College of the Holy Cross (3-21, 2-9 Patriot League) in a Turnpike Trophy matchup at 1 p.m. at Case Gym.
