BU Basketball: New Team, Same Struggles

  by Seth Orensky

For the Boston University Terriers men’s basketball team, Friday night’s game against Iona was the first chance of many to prove that this year would be different than the past two. But after falling to the Gaels of Iona, who exploited all the problem areas the Terriers were prone to last year, head coach Patrick Chambers and his veteran squad showed they have a lot of work left to do.

The Terriers first issue was dealing with the full court press that Iona used for much of the first half and in the 2nd half whenever the Terriers came close to evening the score. BU turned the ball over 22 times in the contest to Iona’s 15 and most of the turnovers came at the most inopportune times. In the contest, the Gaels managed 28 points off turnovers, compared to the Terriers’ 16. Iona was able to force three turnovers in a row early in the first half to open up a 9 point lead that the Terriers would not come back from until the 2:27 mark of the first half. The Gaels then finished the half on a 5-0 run because the Terriers once again turned the ball over three times in a short span. BU then allowed Iona to take control of the game with a 10-2 run early in the 2nd half by turning the ball over 7 times in a painful 6 minute span. But looking outside the numbers, the press disrupted the flow of the Terriers offense and seemingly the confidence in Coach Chamber’s game plan. John Holland turned the ball over 6 times while Corey Lowe ('10) gave it away 5 times and Tyler Morris ('10) "chipped in" with 4. Lowe, the inbounder, and Morris, the man responsible for getting the ball up court, were both visibly frustrated throughout the game when ever Iona head coach Kevin Willard’s squad put the pressure on. At several points after an Iona player forced Lowe or Morris to throw the ball away the players would throw their heads down in disgust and Chambers was left standing on the sideline trying to improve the morale of his rattled troops. Several times after the Terriers were able to beat the press, they were so eager to get a shot off they would take a long three rather than attack the basket, which Chambers continually yelled out at his players.

Interior defense, or a lack thereof, was the second huge issue for the Terriers on Friday night. BU managed to out-rebound the Gaels, but they definitely didn’t control the paint, as Iona had 20 points in the paint to the Terriers 10. Iona’s guards and power forward Alejo Rodriguez their sole presence in the paint were able to constantly get by Terrier defenders and get easy lay-ins or draw Terrier defenders in to allow their many sharpshooters open looks from three point land. Rodriguez, a junior forward, went 4-4 from the field off the bench for Iona in 21 minutes and his physical presence caused the Terriers to have to constantly foul him to stop him from getting easy baskets. The big forward for Iona drew six of the 27 fouls committed by BU, who had every player who played significant minutes in foul trouble by the game’s end. The dominant performance by Rodriguez was reminiscent of last year when BU consistently struggled with strong big men like Darryl Proctor of UMBC and Marqus Blakely of Vermont.

The final issue for the Terriers and easiest to dismiss was the lack of any bench production for Chambers’s squad. BU’s bench was outscored 29-0 and the final line for the short bench was zero points, 10 rebounds, one assist, one turnover in 34 minutes. Without Scott Brittain ('10) and B.J. Bailey ('13), Chambers knew he was going to have a short bench for the road trip. Chambers though who said earlier this week he wanted to bring Sherrod Smith ('10) and Jeff Pelage ('12) along slowly and only play them in situations in which they were comfortable, had his bench much shorter than anyone expected as he only played the two for a combined ten minutes. That left Valdas Sirutis ('10) as the only real contributor off the bench. The senior forward helped the Terriers in the rebound column, but Sirutis was no match for the speedy Iona guards who exploited him multiple times in getting to the basket for easy scores.

Now don’t get me wrong Terriers fans: this is one game, there is no reason to panic but the game was a reality check. Just because the Terriers were predicted to finish first in their conference and had a new coach in Chambers who could seemingly do no wrong in terms of recruiting and energizing the fan base the team still has to play basketball games and minimize their mistakes. If BU’s players can really buy into Chambers philosophy of getting better every day, this team can go a long way.  Everyone will just have to wait and see over the next few months if this team with eight seniors will actually buy into the Chambers mantra.