BOSTON – Boston University’s 85-79 win over Saint Joseph’s is a result the Terriers had been seeking for a while. The last time they won a game was nearly a month earlier, when they knocked off Cornell during Thanksgiving weekend. And while head coach Pat Chambers has felt this team being close to where he wants them to be, they had not broken through in a while and there’s one area that he, like many coaches, emphasizes for improvement.
“I’ll start off by saying, obviously, we need to play better defense,” said the second-year head coach. “And we’ll get there. These guys are committed to playing defense.”
The Terriers were something of a surprise first place pick in the America East preseason poll. There is no shortage of talent on the team, but a lot of it is young or new to the team. From transfers like Darryl Partin and Patrick Hazel to freshmen like Dom Morris and D.J. Irving, there is plenty of new talent alongside senior John Holland and junior Jake O’Brien.
That means they won’t be over-matched very often, if at all. But with so much youth, you don’t know what you’ll get right away, and that’s been evident thus far. It was even evident against the Hawks, where they were behind for much of the game and were down 65-53 with 10:34 left after an 8-0 run. That might have spelled defeat earlier in the season.
“We’ve really been struggling when it comes to end-of-game situations like closing teams out,” said Holland, who had 19 points and eight rebounds. “Today it finally came together, and hopefully it’s a sign of things to come.”
Because he’s the lone senior, Holland is the guy one would naturally look to for leadership. Chambers moved him to the bench early on because he wanted exactly that from him, and said he would stay there until he got more of that. Chambers said it wasn’t punishment as much as trying to lighten the load on him since there’s a lot of pressure on him. Besides being the team’s only senior and best player, he’s the preseason America East Player of the Year. The Terriers certainly got leadership from him on Tuesday night, and Chambers feels like he’s responding better to the challenge.
“John carried us in that run, and when we weren’t making shots he carried us,” Chambers said. “He did some really good things getting to the basket, not relying on the three. I thought he did a really good job of mixing it up and getting to the foul line. He’s our best player, he’s a senior, and some days he’s got to put us on his back and he did that during that stretch.”
Holland was slow to get going in the first half, as he had just three points until two baskets in the final 1:06 of the half. He got going in the second half, and while he did make some plays during their comeback run, the players who really carried them during that stretch were Partin (nine of his game-high 29 in the final 10:34) and Irving (eight of his nine in that stretch).
Partin has come alive starting with the team’s last win before Tuesday night. In the last six games, he is averaging 18.3 points per game, scoring in double figures in every game except the loss at Bucknell. When he has shot it well from deep, he’s had big games: he was 5-6 from three-point range in his 32-point outing against Cornell, and 6-8 on Tuesday night.
The young talent has predictably had its ups and downs thus far. One thing that tends to happen is that younger players defer to the upperclassmen, and Chambers feels there is definitely some of that going on with players like Morris. Irving has shown a lot of potential, mixing in three double-digit scoring games with three scoreless outings, while more importantly handing out 36 assists with just 25 turnovers.
The Terriers also got Jeff Pelage back on Tuesday after he missed the first month and a half with a high ankle sprain. That gives them another veteran and another who has been in the program. It’s hard to believe he was once a player whose presence in a game was indicative of how thin the Terriers’ lineup was, but that tells you how far he has come. They can certainly use his presence and not just on the court.
“Jeff’s our Energizer Bunny,” said Partin. “Having him back is great, he’s a voice in the locker room.”
Sure enough, he impacted the game with seven rebounds and two blocked shots in just ten minutes. It was at that end of the floor that they can use his added impact the most. The Terriers aren’t a bad defensive team, as they’re in the middle of the pack of America East in most defensive categories. But if they are to be a championship team, they will need to be better.
You could sense a little bit of relief in Chambers with the win. But like any coach, there’s more at hand than just winning a game. They host Quinnipiac and head to UMass before starting America East play with a trip to Maine, a team projected to contend in the conference with a good veteran group. The Black Bears haven’t had a smooth non-conference run, but they head into Christmas with a four-game winning streak that began at UMass and most recently included a win at Penn State.
All of that is why Chambers liked the reaction of his team.
“You would think the guys would be jumping around, excited and happy, but they really weren’t,” said Chambers. “There was a different feeling, one of, we got a win, but we didn’t play as well as we could have. That excites me that they weren’t jumping around like it was a huge win, they know they’ve got to get better.”
With that mindset, they’re hopeful of not waiting about another month before their next win.
