Inconsistency plagues men’s basketball in Lehigh road loss

Inconsistent.

That’s the only way Joe Jones, head coach of the Boston University men’s basketball team, could describe his side’s play Saturday afternoon at Lehigh University.

After trailing by as many as 13 points in the first half, the Terriers (7-8, 0-2 Patriot League) put together some dominant stretches, but their comeback efforts fell short in an 81-73 loss.

“[Lehigh] deserved to win the game,” Jones said. “They played better than we did. Our mistakes were more lack of execution, lack of focus, lack of discipline. It was inconsistent effort. Those were things that came into play tonight more than anything.”

Sophomore forward Nick Havener scored 11 of his 13 points in the second half and added 11 rebounds to earn his third-career double-double. Senior forward Nathan Dieudonne added a team-high 17 points and seven rebounds. As a team, the Terriers shot 42.6 percent from the field and went just 9-of-28 from behind the arc.

The preseason Patriot League favorite Mountain Hawks were led by center Tim Kempton’s 22 points and 11 rebounds and freshman Kyle Leufroy’s 20 points. Lehigh, paced by Leufroy, shot nearly 60 percent from distance.

“When teams make a higher percentage of threes than we make, we’re going to be in trouble,” Jones said.

Early on, though, the Mountain Hawks made every attempt to establish their offense through Kempton. The reigning Patriot League Player of the Year, who was coming off of a 28-point outing against the United States Military Academy at West Point, scored 10 of his team’s first 13 points to open up an eight point lead less than five minutes into the game.

The Terriers tried to take advantage of the time Kempton, still recovering from a foot injury, spent off the court. After Kempton headed to the bench with his team up 28-15 with 8:43 to go in the first half, senior guard John Papale dropped eight points on consecutive possessions, helping to reduce the deficit to just 38-36 at halftime.

Still, the Mountain Hawks were ahead, thanks in large part to Leufroy’s sharp shooting. The BU defense threw many different defensive schemes at Lehigh, but Leufroy, who at one point was on Jones’ recruiting radar, went 4-for-4 from three in the first half.

“We’re not finishing possessions,” Jones said. “It’s really irrelevant whether we’re trapping or playing straight man or straight zone right now, because our ability to focus is not there. We had a hard time remembering which defenses we were in.”

After the break, the two sides went back and forth to start the second half of play until the Mountain Hawks pounced on a couple of poor BU decisions to stretch the lead to 53-45 with 12 minutes remaining in the half.

Havener then took it upon himself to get the Terriers back into the contest. As has become a constant throughout the 2015-16 campaign, Havener hustled to fight for loose balls and to keep possessions alive. He scored nine points and grabbed four rebounds in a four-minute span to tie things up at 57.

However, Havener’s individual effort was overshadowed by the Terriers’ inability to execute as a team on both ends of the floor. Lehigh countered every BU blow and never let the visitors earn the lead.

“[Havener] had a great stretch,” Jones said. “That’s been us. We can have somebody step up in a stretch and do some great things, but you’re not going to win just because one guy has a great stretch. You have to do it as a unit.”

A pair of free throws from Dieudonne brought the Terriers to within one point of the Mountain Hawks with under five minutes remaining, but head coach Brett Reed’s squad stayed cool under pressure. Lehigh capitalized on Terrier miscues and made clutch free throws down the stretch to hand BU its second-straight defeat.

Going forward, the Terriers, searching for their first conference win, now face a critical stretch against the United States Naval Academy, Lafayette College and American University. Jones said the key for his staff will be to simplify things to get his team on the same page.

“Right now, we have to give them a better understanding of what we want each one of those guys to do and what we’re trying to do on a consistent basis,” he said. “Right now, we’re really inconsistent with what we’re doing. There’s not one way that we’re doing things. It’s catching up to us.”