The Boston University men’s basketball team dropped a competitive game to Colgate University 74-64 after coming within one point with four minutes left on the clock.
Colgate (16-8, 10-1 Patriot League) came into the game riding a seven-game winning streak and sitting atop the Patriot League standings.
Colgate has dominated BU (9-15, 4-7 PL) the last few seasons, winning nine of the last 10 matchups between the two schools dating back to January of 2021. The Raiders have gone on to win each of the last three Patriot League Championships, moving on to the NCAA Tournament, but never making it past the first round.
“Right now, [the Raiders are] the class of the league,” BU head coach Joe Jones said. “We are capable of playing everyone, and our guys are starting to get more comfortable out there.”
The Terriers were able to keep pace with Colgate for the first 12 minutes of the game, and they were able to limit extended runs where the Raiders could pile on points.
Colgate has proven itself to be an offensive powerhouse. The Raiders hold second place in the PL in points per game, but the team leads the league in the total number of points scored.
One of BU’s biggest downfalls in the first half was the three-point shot. The Raiders were able to go 7-15 from beyond the arc. BU hardly had an answer for Colgate fifth-year forward Ryan Moffatt, who made three of those threes without attempting to score from within the three-point line.
“We made a lot of mistakes in the first half, and some of it, I’m gonna have to take some responsibility,” Jones said. “We were blitzing, and when I say blitzing, that means double team the post and … we were very confused.”
BU also gave up 11 points on nine turnovers in the first 20 minutes. Colgate’s standout sophomore guard Braeden Smith collected four steals in the first half alone.
On the other side of the ball, the Terriers struggled mightily with three-pointers. They only managed to make two out of their 11 attempts, missing wide-open looks.
BU went into halftime down 32-24.
Terrier senior guard Miles Brewster took it upon himself to try and fix the team’s three-pointer problem just 16 seconds into the second half, sinking a shot to start to chip away at Colgate’s lead.
“We got to clean up our mistakes … and then we needed to know what we’re going to do on the post because that was the big thing,” Jones said. “Our perimeter guys can guard pretty good … but we had no answer for the post game, and that’s what we were trying to clean up [going into the second half].”
BU was able to start to claw their way out of their hole with a few good layups from the paint and a foul that allowed sophomore forward Otto Landrum to land two free throws.
Colgate had built their lead back up to 10 points midway through the second half, but the Terriers were not surrendering.
The Terriers then went on a 10-2 run to cut the Raiders’ lead to just one point with just over four minutes left. Junior guard Ethan Okwuosa capped the BU hot streak with a fastbreak layup to bring the team within reach of the lead.
However, Colgate’s offensive rebounds in huge spots allowed them to ice the game. When Smith missed a three-pointer just 30 seconds after Okwuosa’s layup, Moffatt was able to snag the rebound and collect the two points.
When BU tried to respond to keep themselves in the game, Landrum’s layup was blocked by Colgate’s fifth-year forward Keegan Records and rebounded by Moffatt.
“That might have been the play of the game,” Jones said.
The Terriers could not find a way to stifle Records. He ended the game with a team-high 18 points, shooting at a 70% clip and hauling in five rebounds.
“The difference in the game was Records and [the Raiders’] timely offensive rebounds,” Jones said.
Records contributed five points in the 11-0 run Colgate went on that sealed BU’s loss.
Despite the final score, the Terriers proved themselves to be scrappy, keeping the game competitive until the final minutes.
Brewster was one of the few offensive highlights from the night, setting a career-high in points with 21. He was also able to contribute with five defensive rebounds and two assists.
The Terriers will look ahead to a matchup against Bucknell University in Lewisburg on Saturday, Feb. 10.
“I’ve been here long enough to know what winning looks like and how you need to play to win, and we’re kind of getting closer to that,” Jones said. “We can fight a little bit harder, we can dig down a little bit deeper.”
