Men’s basketball keeps rolling at Navy, wins third-straight game

The Boston University men’s basketball team fought off a comeback bid from the United States Naval Academy en route to an 83-72 win Wednesday night in Annapolis, Maryland.

The game is the Terriers’ (13-11, 6-5 Patriot League) third-straight win and their sixth victory in the last eight games. BU now has a winning conference-only record and is .500 in away games.

The Terriers had one of their better games of the season, shooting 58.1 percent from the field and 60 percent from the 3-point line, while limiting the Midshipmen (16-8, 7-4 Patriot League) to 12.5 percent from deep. It was their third-highest scoring game of the year, and they never relinquished the lead to Navy.

Senior guard John Papale led BU in scoring with 18 points, with freshman guard Kyle Foreman contributing 17 points and junior guard Eric Fanning chipping in 15 points. On top of that, junior center Blaise Mbargorba finished with a career-high of seven rebounds and a career-high of five blocks. Their collective contributions offset Navy’s combined 42 points from sophomore Jace Hogan and senior Tilman Dunbar.

“We talked about [how] in the first five minutes, we wanted to come out strong, and we did that,” BU head coach Joe Jones said. “Our guys played with confidence and were aggressive throughout the game. I’m really pleased with how we played. We got sloppy at certain moments in the game, we kind of hurt us with some of our decision making. But all in all, I was really pleased with how we played.”

The game started well enough for the Terriers, with BU taking an early 7-0 lead after a Fanning 3-pointer. Navy remained persistent, however, keeping close behind the Terriers throughout the first half.

The Midshipmen were couldn’t keep up with the BU’s blistering shooting pace, as the Terriers finished the opening half shooting 68.2 percent from the field and 5-of-9 from deep. Most notably, Foreman, along with three assists, scored 12 points and hit all three of his 3-point attempts. Thanks to his impressive scoring, plus 10 early points from Fanning, the Terriers went into halftime with a 45-35 lead.

Jones said it was his team’s confidence level that led to an effective out for the Terriers.

“We played with a lot of confidence early in the game,” Jones said. “We got a big game from Foreman, and I thought that really helped us, him playing so well offensively. We moved the ball and [were] able to get good shots and [were] able to knock them down. I just thought we played with a lot of confidence right away.”

In the second period, the game’s physicality went up a notch, as a combined 29 fouls were called on both teams. Six of those fouls came in the first three minutes of the half. The aggressive nature of the game gave sophomore forward Nick Havener four fouls with 14:55 left in the contest. He would eventually foul out with just over three minutes left, as he was never able to get in a game rhythm. This foul trouble forced Jones to make tough decisions near the end of the game.

“I thought we had to play [senior forward Nathan Dieudonne] too long,” Jones said. “We should have used another big a little bit earlier. I thought that was apparent. I should have started subbing earlier than I did.”

However, as the team was dealing with foul trouble, Papale took over on offense, scoring 16 points in the half and hitting two 3-pointers. He also put the final dagger in the game, hitting 8-of-8 free throws in the last 33 seconds of the game to ensure victory.

“He was aggressive throughout the game,” Jones said. “He had a couple of nice drives kind of playing off of the shot fake. He did a nice job. He’s ice cold from the free throw line, and tonight, he did a good job of that.”