Men’s Basketball: Mathon leads in Terrier victory against Crusaders

By Hannah Yoshinaga

Holy Cross couldn’t come up with a stop against graduate center Sukhmail Mathon in its rematch with BU Wednesday night — and Mathon took advantage, scoring a career-high 26 points in the Terriers’ 78-65 win over the Crusaders. 

After reaching as high as fourth place in the conference in the last week, the Crusaders (8-18, 6-8 PL) now find themselves in eighth place after losing to both BU and American. The win keeps the Terriers (19-9, 10-5 PL) in third, trailing Colgate and Navy.

Mathon also shot 11-of-16 from the field and pulled down a game-high 13 rebounds, helping BU edge Holy Cross on the boards 42-33.

Fifth-year guard Javante McCoy followed suit with 19 points in 37 minutes of action. Senior forwards Walter Whyte and Fletcher Tynen both reached double figures with 10 points apiece.

As a whole, the Terriers shot 52.5% from the floor on the night, compared to 38.7% from the Crusaders.

One of BU’s biggest improvements was restricting Holy Cross rookie Kyrell Luc, whose season-high 24-point performance presented major problems for the Terriers in the teams’ last meeting. Luc shot just 5-of-23 from the field, though he did lead the Crusaders with 16 points.

After the score stayed close for the first several minutes of the game, BU began to extend its lead midway through the period. The advantage grew to as much as 10 points before Holy Cross began to chip away at its deficit with 6:47 remaining in the half.

Two layups by the Crusaders’ Louth-M Coulibaly and a three-pointer from DaJion Humphrey helped Holy Cross cut BU’s lead to two points.

McCoy got to the rim with four minutes left, bringing the lead back to six points. The Terriers built their lead back up behind Mathon and Whyte to finish the period with a 41-34 lead.

The Crusaders rallied coming into the second half, staying competitive with BU and even tying the score seven minutes into the period.

However, as before, the Terriers quickly regained their lead as the Holy Cross offense went into a tailspin. BU never trailed again and finished with a 13-point advantage, the team’s largest lead of the game.

The Terriers will look to sweep top-seeded Colgate in the season series when they take on the Raiders on the road Saturday at 1:30 p.m.