Men’s Basketball: Terriers Win First Conference Game

By:MattDoherty                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            In search of their first Patriot League win of the season, the Boston University Men’s Basketball team played arguably their most complete contest of the season on Saturday afternoon when they defeated Lafayette 68-47 at Case Gym.                                                                                            

After starting conference play at 0-3, Head Coach Joe Jones was disappointed with his team’s effort, especially on the defensive end saying that his squad has played “zero defense” at all in league play.

On Saturday, BU certainly played defense and a whole lot of it, putting together their best defensive game of the season. The Terriers held the Leopards to just 28% shooting from the field (14% in the first half) and had 11 steals.   

Lafayette missed their first ten shots and at the 5:00 minute mark left in the first half theyscored only 5 points. The Leopards finished the first half with 11 total points, a testament to the Terrier defense.

Capitalized by a Nathan Dieudonne steal and fast break dunk and then an Eric Fanning bucket in transition after a steal on the other end, the Terriers built a comfortable 26-11 lead into the intermission.

The Leopards didn’t shoot as poorly in the second half, scraping out 36 points but the relentless BU defense in the first half was too much of a deficit for Lafayette to overcome.

The Terriers also hit the glass extremely well. BU recorded 55 rebounds, the most in a game since 1999.  

The 47 points given up by BU was also the lowest of the season. In fact, the Terriers gave up 55 points in the second half itself on Wednesday against Navy.

On the offensive end, Eric Fanning led the Terriers with a season high 22 points. Kyle Foreman, Nathan Dieudonne, and Blaise Mbargorba all joined Fanning in double digits. Foreman recorded 15 points, Dieudonne had 11 points and 11 rebounds, and Mbargorba had a season high 10 points.

Sophomore Nick Havener recorded his fifth 11 game rebound of the season to go along with 4 points

BU improves to 8-9 (1-3 PL) on the season while Lafayette is now 4-11 (1-3 PL)

The Terriers will look to go for two in a row when they travel to the nation’s capital to take on American University on Wednesday.