After a close road win Wednesday night against American University, the Boston University men’s basketball team will face Loyola University Maryland at home Saturday afternoon.
BU (14-11, 9-4 Patriot League) will look to go on its first three-game win streak since its five-game win streak in mid-January, one which the Greyhounds (13-11, 7-6 Patriot League) broke.
Meanwhile, Loyola is following up on a three-point loss that broke its own four-game win streak and will look to spark another run.
When the two teams faced each other in mid-January, a lot went wrong for BU, but the most notable problem was defending Greyhounds guard Andre Walker, who torched the Terriers with a career-high 35 points and a Loyola school-record nine 3-pointers.
Aware of Walker’s ability to score, BU head coach Joe Jones said he was more concerned about his team’s overall energy.
“It’s one game,” Jones said. “Andre Walker had a superb game. He’s one of the best guards in the league, definitely capable of controlling the game, but honestly it’s more about our energy, how hard we play. That’s more important than anything else.”
One of the reasons BU struggled to play with energy the whole game was foul trouble, but Jones said it was a price to pay for his team’s aggressiveness.
“If you’re not going to be over-aggressive in going after the ball, then that’s the stuff that [brings you] down,” Jones said. “Our defensive rebounding numbers aren’t as good [as our offensive rebounding numbers], and a lot of it is because we play a lot of zone. We have got to go after the ball.”
Another anomaly for the Terriers was their disastrous 3-point shooting, as they went 1-for-18 from deep. However, Jones trusts his players to get their shots going on Saturday, as the Terriers are a much better 3-point shooting team than their previous game against Loyola indicated. BU converts 36.1 percent of its 3-pointers this season, fourth in the Patriot League.
“It’s all about us getting good shots,” Jones said. “If we can get good shots, we’re going to make them. There’s always going to be nights where we struggle like we did at Loyola, but the season’s a long season, and as long as we’re getting good ones, we’re going to be in good shape.”
Among those who struggled from deep was junior guard Cedric Hankerson, who has shot inconsistently this season. He went 1-7 from deep on Jan. 16 against Loyola. Despite his problems on offense, Hankerson continues to make an impact with his all-around game, Jones said.
“He’s making contributions all over the place, and that’s what I’ve asked him to do and try to focus on,” Jones said. “There are going to be nights when he’s going to score a bunch of points, but he’s playing a much better all-around game, and that’s going to help us down the road.”
Hankerson has contributed in other ways, such as defense. He has 11 steals in his past four games.
With the Patriot League tournament coming up, Jones pointed to ball movement and bench contributions as the keys to success not only for this game, but also the rest of the season.
“When we played well, we’ve had four guys in double figures,” Jones said. “It can be different guys. The whole key is — are we getting good shots? If we’re getting good shots, it’s not going to matter, because we can knock them down. That’s the first thing we’re trying to help our guys understand.”
As BU heads for the home stretch, Saturday’s game will be a good indicator of how it has improved since its previous game against the Greyhounds.
“Everything’s kind of going towards being ready in three weeks’ time when the playoffs start. So us sharing the ball, our bench being consistent – those are all key ingredients for us to try and make a run,” Jones said.
