BU men’s basketball’s offensive struggles were on full display in loss at Navy
The Terriers struggled to find any consistent offense at Navy and were held to 50 or fewer points for the third time in Patriot League play.
Trailing by 10 with four minutes to play, the Boston University men’s basketball team, which had struggled to score all night, desperately needed a successful offensive trip to begin clawing its way back.
Freed up by a pick-and-pop, junior forward Nico Nobili launched an open right-wing 3, missed it short, and grabbed his own rebound. He missed a contested putback layup, snagged another board and kicked it out to the perimeter. Sophomore Kyrone Alexander misfired from the same spot as Nobili. Fellow sophomore Mike McNair was next, open from the left wing. The 41.6 percent 3-point shooter came up short but was there for the follow. Two passes later, graduate Miles Brewster found himself alone near the top of the key. His uncontested 3 clanked off the left side of the rim and trickled out of play.
In one single possession, the Terriers had wide-open looks with its best stretch big and its three leading scorers.
Five shots. Four open 3s. Zero points.
“There was one possession we missed, what, four straight 3s?” head coach Joe Jones asked postgame.
“You missed five shots on that one,” a reporter responded.
Jones couldn’t help but let out a roaring laugh. “That’s hard to do, bro,” he followed.
Everything looked hard to do for the Terriers offense on Wednesday, as BU fell, 62-47, to the Navy Midshipmen (6-14, 3-4 Patriot League) at Alumni Hall in Annapolis, Md.
BU (9-11, 3-4 PL) connected on 16 of 52 field goals (30.8 percent), 5 of 23 3s (21.7 percent) and committed 14 turnovers, 11 of which came in the opening half.
“We are struggling offensively,” said Jones. “If you look at the numbers, we just struggled to score it. Struggle to stay aggressive throughout the shot clock at times. When things are there, we haven’t seen them.”
Those numbers Jones referenced aren’t pretty. Through seven conference games, BU has scored 57 fewer points than any other team in the Patriot League — an average of 8.1 per contest. It sports the PL’s worst 3-point percentage (28.9 percent), 3.6 percentage points lower than the second-worst mark. It has a league-low 59.6 percent free throw rate, the PL’s worst turnover margin (-25) and the worst assist-to-turnover ratio (0.72).
And to anyone who has watched the Terriers throughout conference play, those statistics will not come across as the least bit surprising.
“We need to play better offense,” Jones said bluntly. “We had no consistent way of scoring.”
BU’s post players combined for six points on Wednesday. All six came from a pair of Nobili 3-pointers, more than 22 feet from the basket. BU’s guards rarely got into the lane. The Terriers scored just 16 points in the paint, and only 15 more from 3.
“We’ve got to be able to score the ball at the basket, and we’ve struggled to get consistent good shots,” Jones said.
“If you’re not going to have someone that can score the ball in the paint, then your guards have to get to the rim, or you got to make a lot of 3s, and we’ve done none of those,” he continued.
“And,” he added, for good measure, “we’ve also turned the ball over a ton in the first half.”
For a team that already struggles to convert when it does get a shot off, 11 first-half turnovers are catastrophic.
As for its shooting struggles, BU’s two leading scorers — Alexander and McNair — could not throw a rock into the ocean on Wednesday. Alexander scored six points on 2-of-8 shooting and 2 of 4 from the free throw line. McNair, BU’s best shooter, recorded one point and was 0 for 8 from the field.
“If you told me that Mike was going to be 0 for 8 and Ky was going to be 2 for 8,” Jones said, “… you’re going to try to win on the road with that happening, you’re probably not going to win.”
The Terriers consistently found themselves in late shot clock scenarios, bleeding the 30-second timer on each trip down the floor before often settling for a shot worse than one it could have had earlier.
It has been an issue all season, and one that Jones began harping on after Saturday’s loss to Army. BU ranks 358th out of 364 D-I teams in adjusted tempo, per KenPom.
“I’m going to have to try to tweak some things offensively that kind of alleviate some of the tension and pressure we’re feeling,” said Jones. “Because we’re not creating advantages and then when we do, we’re not making plays.”
BU’s only offensive bright spot came from freshman guard Azmar Abdullah, who tied his career-high with 21 points on 7-of-14 shooting. Abdullah scored effortlessly from all three levels. He also added five points at the charity stripe.
“We had nobody else that could consistently do that,” Jones said.
Following a third conference game scoring 50 points or fewer, the Terriers left Annapolis with more questions than answers.
Sure, BU is also winless on the road in Patriot League play this year. 0-4 away from Case Gym after a 5-4 road mark in conference a year ago.
“Especially in the first half of games, we have really struggled to play on the road,” said Jones.
But the Terriers have offensive incompetencies that lie far beyond unfriendly road rims. And if BU can’t mask the issues soon, home or away, it will be tasked with facing those road demons come Patriot League tournament time.