Men’s Basketball: BU slips early, never regains control in loss to Army

Featured image by Eliza Neustro

By Finn Rogan

The Boston University Terriers (10-16, 5-8 Patriot League) lost to the Army Black Knights (9-17, 5-8 PL), 65-50, on Wednesday night at Christl Arena. 

The game started poorly for BU. After taking a 2-0 lead, the Terriers gave up 13 straight points, forcing head coach Joe Jones to call an early timeout. The Terriers looked out of sorts, with poor defensive rotations and stagnant offense. 

“Right from the start of the game we weren’t ready,” Jones said. “We were not locked in to win a basketball game tonight.”

Coming out of the timeout, BU found some offense, getting a couple of 3-pointers to drop. However, the Terriers remained poor on defense, and Jones had to use another timeout as BU trailed 26-12 with 8:11 remaining in the first half. Army shot 10-for-15 from the field to start the game.

The Terriers came out of the timeout with a 9-0 run. The ball was no longer sticky on offense, and the Terriers looked committed defensively. Junior guard Ben Palacios fueled the run. Palacios had nine straight points, connecting from deep twice during the run.

BU had the lead down to five, as they trailed 30-25 at the end of the first half.

Junior guard Ethan Okwuosa started off the second half with back-to-back buckets to bring BU within one point. Army quickly responded with 11 straight points, forcing Jones to use his penultimate timeout with over 16 minutes remaining.

“When they threw the ball inside we had no answer even when we tried to,” Jones said. “We tried to blitz them inside and we had no answer.” 

BU could not get a stop when they needed to as they trailed by 10 to 14 points for most of the second half. Army kept a stranglehold on the game, and led 65-50 as time expired in the second half.

The Terriers had no rhythm offensively, shooting just 32.7 percent from the field. Army, in comparison, shot 52.1 percent. 

“They played well,” Jones said. “You got to give them some credit”.

With only five games remaining in the regular season, each game becomes more important for seeding in the Patriot League tournament. 

“I’m a one game at a time guy,” Jones said. “I gotta figure out what we can do better in practice tomorrow, on Friday, then I gotta get ready for Navy, that’s your mindset this time of the year.” 

BU will look to bounce back on Saturday when they take on the aforementioned Navy at Case Gym at 1 p.m.