{"id":40228,"date":"2024-02-08T03:21:37","date_gmt":"2024-02-08T08:21:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/?p=40228"},"modified":"2024-02-08T12:35:48","modified_gmt":"2024-02-08T17:35:48","slug":"mens-basketball-bu-goes-scoreless-late-falls-to-first-place-colgate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/2024\/02\/08\/mens-basketball-bu-goes-scoreless-late-falls-to-first-place-colgate\/","title":{"rendered":"Men\u2019s Basketball: BU goes scoreless late, falls to first-place Colgate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Featured image by Jacob Ireland<\/em><\/p>\n

By Henry Dinh-Price<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

BOSTON\u00a0 \u2014 Ethan Okwuosa went coast to coast. He snatched the rebound, raced past two defenders, euro stepped past a third, before beating Colgate\u2019s Braeden Smith at the rim.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

His layup cut BU\u2019s deficit to one point with 4:24 remaining, surging on a 7-0 run. Case Gym was roaring.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But the energy was sucked out of the gym moments later.<\/span><\/p>\n

An 11-0 Colgate run over the ensuing four minutes put the game out of reach.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They were minutes the Terriers (9-15, 4-7 PL) will want back, as they fell, 74-64, to the first-place Colgate Raiders (16-8, 10-1 PL) on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

BU senior guard Miles Brewster tied his career-high in points with 21 on 7-for-10 shooting, but it wasn\u2019t enough. Colgate had too many answers offensively.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the first half, Colgate\u2019s elite 3-point shooting proved why it is the team to beat in the Patriot League. Fifth-year forward Ryan Moffatt buried his second 3 in the opening four minutes to give the Raiders a 9-6 lead \u2014 one they would not relinquish.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Less than a minute later, he hit his third.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Terriers double-teamed the post early, an understandable choice against fifth-year forward Keegan Records, the conference\u2019s preseason Player of the Year, but they couldn\u2019t rotate effectively, leaving Moffatt \u2014 a 38.7 percent 3-point shooter \u2014 wide open.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe made a lot of mistakes in the first half and some of it I\u2019m gonna have to take some responsibility,\u201d head coach Joe Jones said. \u201cWe were blitzing (the post). We were very confused. And we kept making mistakes. So I gotta take that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Colgate made 7-of-15 3-pointers in the first half to take a 32-24 lead into halftime.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But in the second half, when Colgate stopped shooting 3s as BU tightened its rotations, Records went to work.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Records scored Colgate\u2019s first 11 points of the half. The 6-foot-10, 250-pounder could not be stopped by sophomore forward Otto Landrum or freshman wing Matai Baptiste.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe had no answer for Records inside,\u201d Jones said. \u201cHe looked like a grown man out there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Records finished with 18 points and five rebounds. Down the final stretch, he scored on three straight trips down the floor to give the Raiders an eight-point lead with just over a minute left.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe won them the game,\u201d Jones said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But even when Records subbed out at the 12-minute mark, BU couldn\u2019t get a stop. The Raiders started the half shooting 9-for-11 and held a 51-42 lead with just over 10 minutes remaining.<\/span><\/p>\n

Colgate\u2019s first 19 points of the half all came in the paint.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve gotta be able to have an answer for the inside game,\u201d Jones said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Brewster got things going momentarily, going on a personal 7-2 run, capped by a right-wing 3 that cut the deficit to four.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve just been playing confidently recently. Shots were feeling good,\u201d Brewster said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But Colgate senior guard Chandler Baker answered with a pair of 3s on consecutive possessions to push the Raiders lead to 10, its largest of the game to that point.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Baker, who averages 5.3 points, exploded for 15 on Wednesday, with 10 coming in the second half.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cChandler Baker was big. That was big for them to get 15 points out of him,\u201d said Jones.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But the Terriers did not go away quietly.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A 7-0 run sparked by five points from freshman guard Kyrone Alexander and capped by the coast-to-coast layup from Okwuosa made it just a one-point deficit, 61-60, with 4:24 remaining.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the ensuing possession, BU forced a missed shot but failed to corral the rebound. Moffatt came away with it, earning the Raiders an extra possession. 18 seconds later, his layup gave Colgate a three-point advantage.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a huge play,\u201d Jones said.<\/span><\/p>\n

As BU looked to counter, Landrum drove inside only for his layup to be pinned on the glass by Records.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI thought that might have been the play of the game, to be honest,\u201d Jones said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After that, it was all downhill for BU.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not gonna sit here and just BS you,\u201d Jones said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to find a way to play well defensively and then knock down a couple of big shots.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Colgate shot 60 percent in the second half and 9-for-21 from 3 for the game. BU couldn\u2019t match it. It shot just 6-of-24 from 3 and failed to knock down timely shots.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to be able to shoot the ball,\u201d Jones said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf we would\u2019ve made two or three more 3s, this would\u2019ve been a game down to the wire against the best team in the league. So what does that mean? It means we got to make a couple of shots.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Shooting has been a struggle all season for BU. At just 32 percent from beyond the arc, the Terriers haven\u2019t proved that they can score reliably from deep.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTeams are gonna pack the paint and make us make shots,\u201d Jones said. \u201cSo we\u2019ve gotta be able to do that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

3-point shooting and interior defense cost the Terriers, but they stayed competitive against the league\u2019s top team. It is certainly progress from their 75-59 loss to Colgate on January 20th in which they were outscored by 21 in the second half.<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, the Raiders had too many answers. Whether it\u2019s 11 3-pointers and holding BU to 59 points in the first matchup or Records dominating down low in the second, the Terriers are just trying to keep pace.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t beat us the same way they did last time,\u201d Brewster said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like Whack a Mole, I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While a 4-7 record in the Patriot League certainly doesn\u2019t scream \u201cchampionship,\u201d Brewster, a senior, still has high hopes for his final season. And he knows that Colgate is in his way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf we wanna win a championship, we\u2019re gonna play them again,\u201d Brewster said.<\/span><\/p>\n

But to even think about a possible championship in March, BU will need to get on track with a road win against Bucknell (10-14, 7-4 PL) on Saturday at 2 p.m. The Terriers lost the first matchup at Case Gym 73-57.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Featured image by Jacob Ireland By Henry Dinh-Price BOSTON\u00a0 \u2014 Ethan Okwuosa went coast to coast. He snatched the rebound, raced past two defenders, euro stepped past a third, before beating Colgate\u2019s Braeden Smith at the rim.\u00a0 His layup cut BU\u2019s deficit to one point with 4:24 remaining, surging on a 7-0 run. Case Gym […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23098,"featured_media":36964,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1026,1027,19],"tags":[1128,1129,69,1145,1902],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40228"}],"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=40228"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40230,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40228\/revisions\/40230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}