Men’s Basketball: Terriers drop fourth straight game in lopsided loss to Army
By: Ethan Fuller
BOSTON, MA — Joe Jones put it bluntly after Boston University men’s basketball fell at home for the fourth-time in a row in a 79-59 loss to Army.
“I’ve gotta take full responsibility for my team,” the head coach said postgame. “Obviously, we were terrible again tonight.”
The Terriers (1-4) never led against the Black Knights (3-2), hanging onto a 32-23 halftime deficit before crumbling the second half. Army forward Alex King scored a game-high 20 points on 9-of-11 shooting, but Josh Caldwell (15 pts) and Lonnie Grayson (10 pts) also reached double figures. Only one Terrier eclipsed the ten-point mark: forward Walter Whyte, who had 17 on the score sheet.
It was a sobering two-way performance for the defending league champions, who are now last in the PL North mini-conference.
“I needed to do a better job of managing my team when [Army] went on that run,” Jones said.
Army dominated the interior, outscoring BU 50-16 in the paint and consistently plowing through the Terrier defenders. Jones attributed the Black Knights’ success to a simple inability to guard one-on-one.
“[The Black Knights] weren’t even running their stuff as much as they would break it off and just go one-on-one,” he said. “They just did a good job getting into the paint, and if that guy didn’t finish, they did a good job of cutting and getting cutters to the rim.”
On offense, the Terriers again started cold from the field, but started to find a rhythm late in the first half. They made 61 percent of their second-half looks, but were undone by a bevy of turnovers. Too many cross-court passes and mistimed post entry passes were swiped away by the Black Knights.
“We need to shorten those passes. If I’m one pass away, I need to shorten the pass so that guy doesn’t have to make that [long] pass every time,” he said.
BU’s shooters actually found some overall success; they canned a solid 37.5 percent of their three-pointers, led by a much-needed three triples from senior Andrew Petcash. But unlike the past series against Colgate, Sukhmail Mathon and Jack Hemphill were hard-pressed to find easy paint touches. They finished with a combined 13 points.
Again BU was missing Javante McCoy and Jonas Harper, and junior Fletcher Tynen was added to the injury report for the first time as well. It has forced less experienced players to take on a larger workload — even tougher in the unusual state of college hoops. The inexperience is taking its toll.
“Obviously, we have some guys who just — they’re not ready. They’re not ready to play the roles that they’re playing right now. Hopefully with some of these guys coming back, we’re able to put these guys into [clearer] roles,” Jones said.
BU has a rapid turnaround, but stays home to rematch Army at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday.