Men’s Basketball: Terriers fall at Colgate in Patriot League quarterfinals

By: Ethan Fuller

Boston University men’s basketball ended its season on the same Cotterell Court where the program won the Patriot League title in 2020.

But one year later, the Terriers found themselves on the wrong end of the final score. Colgate earned its eleventh straight win on Saturday with a 77-69 victory, advancing to the semifinals and knocking BU out of the playoffs.

Every time the Terriers hit a groove, the Raiders shut them down in the physical, hard-fought matchup. BU finishes its season at 7-11, with five of those defeats coming to Colgate.

“This loss stings as hard as any loss I’ve had, because this is a group of guys I really respect and have a lot of confidence in, both as people and as players,” said coach Joe Jones. “When you have that kind of relationship with your guys, it really hurts.”

Javante McCoy led BU with a season-high 27 points. But he was without backcourt partner Ethan Brittain-Watts, who missed the game due to a shoulder injury. Losing one ball-handler put a lot on McCoy’s plate, and it added one last dose of lineup turmoil — a theme for the Terriers this season.

“Playing [McCoy] at the point so much in this game hurt the flow of the offense because we couldn’t play the normal way we play, because [Brittain-Watts] was the guy that was making sure the ball was moving and doing all the little things to make the offense work,” Jones said. “So we were a little stagnant. But we still had a lot of open shots.”

Junior forward Fletcher Tynen took Brittain-Watts’ place, but got into some bizarre foul trouble. Tynen picked up his “fifth” foul midway through the second half and hit the bench. However, the officials were confused after spending time looking at the monitor, and on the next timeout, re-attributed a foul to Garrett Pascoe. Tynen re-entered the game and would later foul out in the closing possessions.

Fouls became the story of the second half. Both sides reached the double-bonus with plenty of time to spare, and frequent whistles kept either side from building momentum. One controversial Jonas Harper offensive foul negated a BU fast break that could have cut the deficit to one possession. The Terriers shot 10 free throws in the second half alone, while Colgate attempted a whopping 26.

Jones gave a short laugh during the postgame press conference. He noted the total free throw discrepancy — 39-14 in favor of the Raiders — but also said his team bears responsibility.

“I put that on us. We probably played with our hands too much; you’ll have to let each person decide what they thought about [the fouling],” he said. “But any time you have that big of a differential in foul shooting, it’s tough.”

Senior center Sukhmail Mathon logged a career-high 14 rebounds to go with 14 points and four blocks. But outside of him and McCoy, the Terriers struggled to buy a bucket. Walter Whyte shot just 3-of-14 as part of his 12 points. Jonas Harper went 4-of-10 en route to 9 points. The bench did not make a field goal, and only freshman Miles Brewster cashed in on free throws.

“I thought it was a game where we put ourselves in position to win, and we just couldn’t get ourselves over the top,” Jones said.

Meanwhile, BU did its best to contain a high-powered Colgate offense. Patriot League Player of the Year Jordan Burns scored 16 points on 13 shots, and struggled to get going until late in the afternoon. Tucker Richardson and Jack Ferguson picked up the slack and also scored 16 points apiece. Ferguson in particular was a thorn in the BU side; he made a trio of game-changing threes, including the dagger that made it a 72-63 game in the final minutes.

“When [Burns] got his third foul, we weren’t able to gain an advantage,” Jones said. “I thought that was important, when he went to the bench, that we could make a run. And we weren’t able to do that.”

Jones explained that it was a trying year for the team, between COVID-19, scheduling, injuries and performance. He felt as though BU spent most of the year playing catch-up. Then, when the Terriers finally hit their stride in the last few games, they ran into Colgate and ran out of room.

“We were better,” he said, “but we were inconsistent until the last four games or so.”