BU men’s basketball isn’t panicking, and it showed in 75-71 win over UMBC
The Terriers suffered a brutal loss on Tuesday against Wagner, then very nearly did it again on Saturday, before a calm and collected final three minutes secured the win.
Joe Jones has spoken very matter-of-factly about this Boston University men’s basketball team having a chance to be, well, really good, but on Saturday afternoon, he made a full-blown declaration about his 2-4 Terriers.
“I know we’re going to be good,” he said after BU’s 75-71 win over UMBC in Baltimore. “Like, there is no doubt in my mind.”
Later, over the phone from the Terriers’ hotel, the heart and soul of Jones’ team was asked what he thought about all that, after BU barely escaped dropping to 1-5.
“I agree with Coach Jones,” graduate guard Miles Brewster said, “it’s not a doubt in my mind.”
Their word is next to gospel within the program, and it takes a lot for each of them to arrive at such a place. So it feels warranted to conclude there is zero panic here, even if there was also no way around Tuesday’s home loss to Wagner. The Terriers threw that game, in the type of dumbfounding fashion that leaves one thinking things could start to spiral, and on Saturday against the Retrievers, BU very nearly did it again. The Terriers blew an 11-point lead by surrendering a 14-0 run, which UMBC (3-4) completed with three minutes to play.
“That was a 14-0 run?” Brewster said when asked what happened. “Shit.”
Staring a 1-5 start in the face — BU’s only done that twice in Jones’ 14 seasons — the Terriers simply… didn’t let it happen. Sophomore forward Matai Baptiste made a wing 3-pointer here and two free throws there, and Brewster put his head down for two layups to ice it. Both were off the same action.
“Just a play designed to get me to my right hand,” Brewster said.
Easy as that. BU was spiraling, then just decided to stop. Brewster, who’s gained a reputation as one the best leaders in program history, was asked what, if anything, was said during a timeout after the Retrievers had taken the lead, and his answer wasn’t exactly rocket science.
“Honestly dude, I don't know if there's any specific message other than we gotta defend them,” he responded with a chuckle. “And keep trusting ourselves.”
That’s exactly what BU did, as if dropping another close game in this young season wasn’t a terribly confronting reality. Which it probably wasn’t.
BU’s roster is virtually the exact same as a year ago, and needless to say, that’s quite the advantage in this era of college hoops. Last season, the Terriers rode a rollercoaster with far more valleys than peaks and still came out the other side. This, ultimately, is why Jones and Brewster are so confident this team will be a contender, even if it really hasn’t shown it yet.
“There were times last year where I was literally thinking to myself, we suck. We are not a good team,” Brewster said. “And then the fact we were able to turn it around and become probably the best team in our conference, and I felt like we could compete with anybody in the country… we just have to stay together and keep chipping away, just like we did last year.”
BU also started its non-conference slate 1-4 a season ago, before beginning Patriot League play 2-5 on a slew of systemic failures, specifically on offense. It then finished the regular season on a six-game winning streak, earning the No. 2 seed in the conference tournament before falling in overtime in the semifinal. So this season’s 1-4 start? Hardly a crisis.
Besides, Jones reiterated again on Saturday that he really doesn’t care about his team’s record this early in the year.
“Listen, man… I can’t be worried about, after six games, that we’re 2-4,” he said. “I’m concerned about how we’re progressing. It’s the process of trying to get them to play the way we’re playing. I’m not really thinking about the record — I wait for the year to be over to evaluate that.”
And the Terriers do appear to be making progress. By no means is BU playing its best basketball — it committed 17 turnovers to only 12 assists on Saturday. But besides that and whatever happened on the 14-0 run late in the second half, BU looked more comfortable on offense than it has all season. Baptiste entered shooting a putrid 25 percent from the field but scored a season-high 13 points on 4-of-5 shooting. Brewster, he too suffering from a tough start to the season, finished with a season-high 18 on 7 of 13 from the field. All but one of the 10 Terriers who saw the floor scored, and six of them finished with more than seven points.
Four days after being overwhelmed by Wagner’s in-your-face defense.
“Obviously,” Jones said, “the other night was a tough loss.”
Brewster kind of disappeared on Tuesday, only taking five shots in a grind-it-out game that could’ve used his presence. On Saturday, he relentlessly attacked the basket, specifically down the baseline, which he turned into multiple up-and-under finishes at the rim. He noted UMBC’s lack of size and “back man help,” but also said he’s been trying to “get back to the basics.” The dribble drive is where the athletic 6-foot-3 guard is at his most dangerous.
It has not been the start to his final season the preseason All-Patriot League selection would’ve liked, yet Brewster, who’s admitted to being overly self-critical during his college career, spoke of his struggles over the phone like there was barely a worry in the world.
“I’ve definitely been frustrated, but honestly, bro, I just woke up this morning with an epiphany of just trying to have more fun and being really aggressive,” he said. “I knew it was gonna come at some point, and I just gotta take it a day at a time.”
Ditto on those early-season struggles for the rest of BU. Conventional wisdom suggested the Terriers would pick up right where they left off after a runaway finish to last season; they were picked third in the Patriot League preseason poll. They have, uh, not played like it so far. Part of that is due to injuries to three of BU’s regular starters. Junior Nico Nobili is back and started against UMBC, but senior Ethan Okwuosa and junior Otto Landrum remain out. “There’s more going on than meets the eye,” Jones said. Still, BU hasn’t played to its standard so far this year, something Jones has had no problem admitting.
But that’s the beauty of the non-conference slate — it doesn’t matter. As Brewster said assistant coach Mike Quinn reminded him after Tuesday’s loss: “We’re not getting an at-large bid.”
Jones did acknowledge that wins this time of year are still important. “You could tell your team a lot of things, but for them to truly believe that, you have to win,” he said. But then again, he told this group a lot of things last season, even while it wasn’t winning a lot of games, and the message still got through in the end.
Hence the lack of panic after Tuesday.
“I’m not trying to minimize the loss at all, like it sucks,” Brewster said. “But also, we just got to move on to the next game. Last year, we did that so well. It’s not a conference game, it’s not a February game… in the grand scheme of things, it isn’t the biggest deal.”
After talking about it long enough, Brewster stumbled across a realization.
“I guess I am minimizing it,” he said.
If nothing else, BU’s earned the right to do that.