Men’s Basketball: Terriers Host American

By: Matt Doherty

Riding a season high four game winning streak, the Boston University Men’s Basketball team will return home on Wednesday night to take on the American University Eagles at 7 PM at Case Gym.

The Terriers come into the matchup with tons of momentum following a dramatic overtime win over Lafayette that saw BU pick up their fourth straight win and move into a four way tie for second place in the Patriot League.

Nathan Dieudonne continued his dominant rebounding stretch with a 17 board performance while Cheddi Mosely, John Papale, and Eric Fanning all provided double digit scoring to lead the charge.

Joe Jones’ team hasn’t lost since January 23rd when league leading Bucknell came to Case Gym and beat them by three. The four game winning streak is the longest current streak in the Patriot League and the search for number five will take place against American on Wednesday night.

The Eagles got off to a dreadful start to the 2015-2016 campaign going 2-15 before rattling off a five game winning streak in league play. American saw their hot streak come to an end on Saturday when Lehigh beat them by 23.

Coming in at 7-16, 5-7 PL, American is a completely different team than the one BU beat 61-50 in DC back in early January.

Prior to their five game winning streak, the Eagles were dead last in Division 1 in points per game at 52.9 and 323rd in opponents field goal percentage.

The young American team has turned the corner though, finally adapting to head coach Mike Brennan’s Princeton style offense and fine tuning the defense. They have also cleaned things up on the glass and turning the ball over.

Couple those recent successes with one of the nation’s slowest paced teams, and the Eagles are grinding out wins.

This is a contrast to the BU team who loves to push the ball and shoot three pointers. The slow paced Eagles certainly maintained the Terriers last time out holding them to just 61 points but simply could not score the ball.

The Terriers can not let American dictate the pace of the game because BU is not equipped for a slow, half court game. BU needs to play the game they want to play, crash the glass, make their shots, and protect their home court to pick up the fifth straight win.

Tip-off from Case Gym is scheduled for 7 PM and can be seen live on the Patriot League Network and heard on WTBU Sports Radio.