BOSTON – It wasn’t pretty, but Northeastern’s 66-64 win over Boston University in Friday night’s season opener for both clubs had some bright signs for the Huskies, a much younger team this time around. In some respects, it’s a blueprint for success this season.
Not surprisingly, the Huskies will rely on senior guard Chaisson Allen. He’s coming off a big year in which he was runner-up for CAA Player of the Year, and with several key players graduating this is unquestionably his team. Head coach Bill Coen noted how the Huskies will ask him to do seemingly everything. But they also need him to not try to be what he isn’t, and more importantly for the younger players to take a cue from him and contribute.
On Friday night, that happened as Allen scored a team-high 20 points and handed out five assists, while three others all in their first or second year of eligibility scored in double digits. Allen is intelligent enough to understand that being a leader doesn’t mean there’s a one-way exchange.
“It’s a great challenge for me as a player and as a leader of the team, being captain,” said Allen. “These guys look to me, and I try to look to them, too, and make them carry some of the weight.”
Coen said before the season and reiterated on Friday that the sophomore class will be the key to this season. Players like Joel Smith and Jonathan Lee, whose minutes were limited, as well as returning starters Kauri Black and Alwayne Bigby, have to make good strides this season. Black and Bigby showed what they are capable of, but Black wasn’t healthy for the first two months and Bigby needs to become an offensive threat to go along with his defense.
“It wasn’t really a lack of talent, but really a lack of opportunity for them to get a chance to play,” said the fifth-year head coach. “Now you see guys like Joel Smith and Kauri Black and Alwayne Bigby, they tested the waters out last year and now they’re ready to assume some bigger roles.”
For a while, Allen wasn’t really carrying the Huskies. He wasn’t invisible, but the two sophomore starters had some brighter moments. Then in the last 7:50 of the half, Allen took over, scoring 11 points on 5-7 shooting with a variety of baskets to finish the half with 16 points on 7-11 shooting. They included a pair of three-pointers and mid-range shots in traffic that he probably would not have made a couple of years ago.
His numbers were not big in the second half, but Allen came up big when the Huskies needed it even after going down and limping off at one point from cramping up. A drive with a stop and pop just inside the foul line put them up 58-49. Later, when the Terriers had a chance to take the lead as they had the ball down one, it was Allen who came up with a loose ball and fed Smith on the break for a layup to push the lead back to three at 62-59.
But that wasn’t all. After making two free throws to make it a two-possession game, he drew a critical charge at the defensive end on Darryl Partin with just over a minute left that kept the lead up.
Then in the final minute, it was two younger players who came up big. With a two-point lead and the shot clock running down in the final seconds, a missed shot by Allen was headed out of bounds. But Black beat everyone to the ball, grabbed it as he was falling out of bounds and fired it out to freshman Alex Harris, who then drained both free throws with 5.4 seconds left to seal the win.
Black had a double-double with 11 points and 12 rebounds, going 7-9 from the foul line and leading a 37-28 Husky edge on the backboards. Harris had 12 points while showing that he’s very athletic, and Smith had 10, including a four-point play early on. Just like they played off Allen, Coen knows his senior was a key.
“Without the senior leadership of Chase Allen, I think those efforts would have been for naught,” Coen said. “Chase gives us a steadying influence out there. As Alex (Harris) said, guys play off him, he makes the game easy for his teammates.”
Allen led, and the younger teammates followed and made their contributions. It’s how one might script success for the Huskies this season, and in the season opener against an arch-rival, it went the way it was drawn up.
