Featured image by\u00a0Jacob Ireland<\/i><\/p>\n
By Henry Dinh-Price<\/span><\/p>\n BU had the Colgate Raiders on upset watch at halftime, leading 33-28 against the three-time defending Patriot League Champions. But their five-point lead evaporated quickly.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n BU Men\u2019s Basketball (7-12, 2-4 PL) was unable to sustain their first-half production, falling 75-59 as Colgate (11-8, 5-1 PL) showed their championship pedigree at Cotterell Court in Hamilton, N.Y on Saturday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The Raiders jumped out to an early 9-2 lead after burying three straight 3s. On all three, the Terriers left shooters wide open. In response, BU head coach Joe Jones called a quick timeout to settle things down.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou cannot let the game get away from you,\u201d Jones said. \u201cYou can\u2019t play through those mistakes against them and hope that it\u2019s gonna get remedied.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n After the timeout, the Terriers immediately got back into the game. Colgate kept their lead for much of the first half, but BU kept their deficit within five points.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n With under seven minutes remaining in the first half, the Terriers trailed 22-19.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Then, junior guard Ethan Okwuosa put the Terriers in control for the first time all game. Okwuosa went on a 9-0 scoring run by himself to put BU ahead 28-22 late in the first half and give the Terriers a much-needed offensive spark.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cEthan I thought had a great game offensively. It was good to see him be aggressive,\u201d said Jones.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The Terriers kept their lead entering halftime, behind a great defensive outing through 20 minutes. Colgate shot just 9-for-27 (33.3 percent) in the first half and only made 3-of-12 shots from two-point range.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And offensively, the Terriers looked solid, making 13-of-29 shots (44.8 percent).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe had a really strong first half,\u201d Jones said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But all of the positives from BU\u2019s first half were wiped away just five minutes after halftime.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As BU went scoreless for over five minutes to start the second half, Colgate went on a game-changing 16-0 run to take a 44-33 lead.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Colgate senior forward Ryan Moffatt buried four 3s on the Colgate run, as BU defenders failed to locate him after missed shots and turnovers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe weren\u2019t doing a great job in transition. We had two guys running to the paint leaving the best shooter in the gym wide open,\u201d Jones said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Moffatt finished with 23 points to lead all scorers. He killed BU from behind the arc, making six of his 11 3-point attempts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMoffatt getting off 11 threes, if that\u2019s happening, we weren\u2019t able to execute our gameplan. He\u2019s one of the best 3-point shooters in the league,\u201d Jones said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n BU tried to respond to Colgate\u2019s run but was never able to get within six points after falling behind.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Any time the Terriers cut the lead to six or seven, the Raiders responded with a basket on the next possession to keep BU at bay.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n BU was unable to string together stops, as Colgate shot 53.8 percent (14-for-26) in the second half.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDefensively, I didn\u2019t think we were as locked in together as we could have been,\u201d Jones said. \u201cWe just had way too many breakdowns defensively.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n And BU\u2019s second-half offense did not do them any favors either. The Terriers shot 1-for-13 from 3 and only 9-for-27 overall in the second half.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n After a solid first half offensively, BU felt due for a poor outing after halftime. Shooting has been a struggle for the Terriers all season.<\/span><\/p>\n Through six Patriot League contests, BU is shooting just 37 percent from the field and 30.1 percent from three. Both rank at the very bottom of the Patriot League.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Yet Jones still feels confident in his team\u2019s ability.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019re a much better shooting team than what we\u2019ve shown,\u201d Jones said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But are they better?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At this point in the season, it seems too late to expect any drastic changes in BU\u2019s shooting percentages. The Terriers have proved all year long that they can\u2019t shoot consistently, why should that change now?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Jones\u2019 solution: \u201cIf [sophomore forward Nico Nobili] can score inside and [sophomore forward Otto Landrum] can score inside a little bit more, and then we can get the ball to the basket. We got a few more layups off the drive. I think those are things that can help us that we\u2019re not just relying on the 3.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n But if it were that simple, Nobili and Landrum would already be scoring inside. The two combined for 19 points, but only eight of them came in the paint. On many possessions, the two bigs felt comfortable patrolling around the three-point line with neither getting anywhere near the rim.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This lack of interior presence reverts to BU relying on the 3 when they shouldn\u2019t. Despite ranking last in 3-point percentage in the Patriot League, BU ranks first in 3-point attempts. Against Colgate, the Terriers shot just 6-for-28 from 3.<\/span><\/p>\n Unfortunately, there is no easy fix to this offense.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n BU will have a chance to bounce back when the they face a struggling Army West Point team (5-14, 1-5 PL) at Case Gym on Wednesday at 7 p.m.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Featured image by\u00a0Jacob Ireland By Henry Dinh-Price BU had the Colgate Raiders on upset watch at halftime, leading 33-28 against the three-time defending Patriot League Champions. But their five-point lead evaporated quickly.\u00a0 BU Men\u2019s Basketball (7-12, 2-4 PL) was unable to sustain their first-half production, falling 75-59 as Colgate (11-8, 5-1 PL) showed their championship […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23098,"featured_media":36972,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1026,1027,19],"tags":[33,1128,1129,69,1145,1902,1848],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39915"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23098"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39915"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39916,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39915\/revisions\/39916"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}