Men's Basketball vs. St. Bonaventure (11/9/07)

by James Sherrill

Somewhere between his fifth and sixth attempt, sophomore guard Corey Lowe found his long range jumper.

After starting the game with 12 plus minutes where he was unable to make a shot from the floor, Lowe connected for his first three-pointer with 7:22 remaining in the first half. From there, Lowe and the Terriers took off.

Lowe scored 26 of his game high 28 points, making 6 of 11 attempts from three, in the remaining 27 plus minutes, as the Terriers blew by the St. Bonaventure Bonnies 68-57 for a season opening win.

“When I started off slow last year I kind of let that bother me,” said Lowe. “This year I fought through it. I just had to keep telling myself to keep shooting.”

Starting with Lowe’s first three, the Terriers closed out the game on a 53-36 run. Lowe stepped up as Tyler Morris missed the first game with a foot injury, which is expected to keep in him out for six weeks.

Freshman John Holland also stepped up to play a key role in Morris’ absence. Holland was second on the team with 12 points in 23 minutes in his Terrier debut. Despite 3 turnovers and some freshman mistakes, his athleticism energized the BU crowd and his six-foot-five-inch frame gave the Bonnies problems at the top of BU’s 1-3-1 zone.

“I have confidence in John Holland has a player,” said head coach Dennis Wolff. “I have confidence as John Holland as a player, but there are things these freshman need to understand daily, but don’t get me wrong John Holland made a lot of plays tonight.”

The Terriers mostly used a 1-3-1 zone, but mixed it up with a little man to man and other zones keeping the Bonnies off balance and forcing them into 20 turnovers. “We left 60 points out there,” said Bonnies’ head coach Mark Schmidt. “Sometimes we attacked them like we didn’t know what the heck a 1-3-1 [zone] was.”

For Schmidt, it was his first game on the bench for the Bonnies, and he faced many of the same problems that plagued the young Terriers squad last year. His squad, which started 3 newcomers, including 2 freshmen, had only 13 assists to their 20 turnovers.

The Terriers, on the other hand showed an increased maturity from last season. Even without Morris and playing a more up-tempo style then they did last season the Terriers had only 11 turnovers to 21 assists.

“That’s what we worked on all summer, quickening our pace and we can outrun a lot of teams” said Lowe. “We have long athletic runners, like Scott [Brittain], Max [Gotzler], [who] can get up the floor better than some teams’ bigs, so we want to push the ball as much as possible.”

Junior co-captain Matt Wolff, in his first game in almost two years, made a big impact for the Terriers. He logged a team high 38 minutes and despite only two points and an air ball on his first shot attempt, he had seven assists and four rebounds, three of them offensive.

“It was a little easier on the defensive end. I was a little anxious on the offensive end, I rushed my first shot,” said Matt Wolff. “It was a great feeling. I haven’t played in three years, it was a lot of fun.”

It was not a perfect game for the Terriers. They struggled shooting at times, going 3-18 from three in the first half. Carlos Strong was noticeably off with his shot, tallying only 11 points on 4-15 shooting from the floor.

“The encouraging thing from our standpoint is we won this game not shooting great,” said Dennis Wolff. “Carlos had a lot of good looks and Carlos is a great shooter, so that’s a good thing for us too.”

The Terriers were also more willing to run in this game then they were last season, but it did not always produce results. “We didn’t finish two or three times that Corey made perfect passes ahead, so that’s something we got to continue to work on,” Dennis Wolff said.

Senior forward Michael Lee connected on three threes early in the first half helping St. Bonaventure out to an early 21-15 lead. Lee scored a team high 24 points and 8 boards for the Bonnies.

“He was the guy that kept us in the game,” said Schmidt. “Not only did he score the ball he did a great job out in front of our 1-3-1 and 1-2-2 zones.”

The Terriers behind Lowe’s shooting and 6 points from a new found ability to get on the fast break finished the final 7:22 of the first half on a 17-5 run. “I thought our guys did a great job adjusting as the game went on,” said Wolff.

Corey Lowe came out of the locker room on fire, hitting a three less than a minute in for the Terriers first points of the half. Eight minutes later, his third three of the second half gave the Terriers a game high 15 point lead with 12:23 to play.

The Bonnies made up 4 points over the final 12:23, but it was too little too late. The Bonnies could not get 2 of their 3 key seniors involved in the game. Zarryon Fereti, who averaged 12.1 ppg last season, was held to only two second half free throws. Tyler Relph was 0-7 from the floor with 5 turnovers. “We did a very good job of keeping them off balance,” said Dennis Wolff

“As I told the team in the locker room, were only going to be as good as our seniors. Tonight we only had one senior play [well], and we need to have three seniors. Tyler [Relph] and [Zarryon Fereti], going 0-11,” said Schmidt. “We need to have those guys play better.”

Sophomore forward Scott Brittain used an array of low post moves to total 10 points on 5-7 shooting from the floor. Sophomore Carlos Strong led the team with 7 rebounds. Corey Lowe was second with six.

Corey Lowe has 45 points, 10 assists and 10 rebounds in two career games against St. Bonaventure. BU improved to 46-85 against the Atlantic 10 all-time and 5-9 in season openers under Wolff.

Junior Tyler Benson was the only other Bonnie in double digits with 10 points. The Bonnies were 0-9 in the second half from beyond the arc.

The Terriers return to action when they visit George Washington on Wednesday. They are 1-0 (0-0 AE) on the season. The Bonnies fell to 0-1 (0-0 A10) and host Binghamton on November 12^th in their next game.

Stay tuned for the next WTBU broadcast of Terriers Men’s Basketball on Saturday, November 17^th at 7pm against St. Joseph’s.