Men’s Basketball: BU snaps five-game losing streak with road win at Lafayette

By: Ethan Fuller

Boston University men’s basketball entered Saturday afternoon on a five-game losing streak as one of the coldest teams in the Patriot League. So when the Terriers righted the ship and beat a high-powered Lafayette offense, 81-76, it was a validating victory for head coach Joe Jones and his team.

“I think our guys stayed confident that we could play better,” Jones said postgame, “so I’m just happy we looked as good as we were capable of looking.”

The Terriers grabbed a sorely-needed win to improve to 2-5 this season, while Lafayette snapped a five-game winning streak of their own, dropping to 5-2.

It was no easy task for BU, who pulled away a number of times in the game, only for the Leopards to claw their way back. But behind a fully-healthy starting five of Javante McCoy, Ethan Brittain-Watts, Jonas Harper, Walter Whyte and Sukhmail Mathon, the Terriers found a level of synergy they missed during the last two weeks.

“It was beautiful to watch,” Jones said. “That was thing people would say [last year]. They’d watch us play and they would say, ‘Hey, your guys really are connected. They enjoy playing with each other.’ Tonight was kinda back to that.”

McCoy led all BU scorers with 16 points, and was part of a quartet of Terriers to reach double figures, along with Whyte (14), Jack Hemphill (13), Harper (12). The senior guard had shaken off some injuries to start the season, but demonstrated his trademark package of slashing, step-backs and confidence with the ball.

“We knew what we were capable of,” said McCoy. “We just had some bad timing with a lot of things. We just had to get time to mold as a team.”

Harper in particular had a signature performance. Tasked with guarding an elite scorer in Lafayette’s Justin Jaworski, the junior guard set the tone on defense with three steals while going 4-of-5 from long range on the other end. Jaworski got his 20 points, but went just 6-for-14 from the floor and 2-of-7 from deep.

“[Harper] is an absolute dog; he’s a terror,” Jones said. “We’re not the same program without that kid. He’s easily one of the toughest guys in the league.”

“He’s picking up 94 feet and guarding the ball,” McCoy added. “We have to have his back, so we get more locked in and try to match his energy. It brings the whole team up.”

Harper’s four triples led a revitalized perimeter attack. Entering Saturday, the Terriers were making just 26.4 percent of their threes, but knocked down 10 of 22 attempts from distance against the Leopards. Hemphill made a trio of triples, while the sophomore Brittain-Watts added two of his own.

“There’s no way we we were this bad,” Jones said. “We just had to get our legs under ourselves — we have guys who can make shots.”

Jaworski led a Lafayette offense that also came at BU from a number of angles. Star sixth man E.J. Stephens managed 13 points on the afternoon, while Kyle Jenkins, Tyrone Perry and Neal Quinn each tallied 12. But BU emphasized taking away three-pointers, and Lafayette, who came into the weekend averaging over ten made threes per game, knocked down just six.

“They back-cut us some because we’re trying to take away threes, but we’d rather give up some twos than threes,” Jones said.

BU endures its first road back-to-back tomorrow with a rematch scheduled for 6:00 p.m. Jones wants to see more from his bench in the second bout, and also said he might blend the starting and bench units more often. The Terriers have yet to win a turnaround game this season, so Sunday is a test of the team’s focus.

“[Lafayette], they’re constantly running; they’re constantly running off screens, so there’s just a lot you gotta do,” McCoy said. “You gotta stay focused at all points of the game.”