How in the world is BU men’s basketball so good at home?
The Terriers' 68-66 win over Loyola Maryland on Wednesday was their 10th straight home win, the program's longest streak in almost 30 years.
BOSTON — Moments after the final buzzer sounded on an astounding 10th consecutive home win for the Boston University men’s basketball team, Kyrone Alexander, Miles Brewster and Ben Roy met at midcourt for a group hug. Alexander smiled. Brewster hung his head in relief.
The chair had so very nearly been pulled out from under them, when Loyola Maryland sharpshooter Jacob Theodosiou found a wide-open corner 3-pointer that would’ve won the game in the final seconds. For BU, winning at Case Gym has been whatever the more extreme version of a lifeline is this season. The Terriers are 0-7 on the road during Patriot League play but entered Wednesday night 7-0 at home.
Alexander said postgame that the Terriers “try not to harp on it too much.” But then it was head coach Joe Jones’ turn at the dais.
“I’m not worried about it, but I know they are,” he said. “No matter what I say.”
So when Theodosiou elevated, he did so with an uncontested chance to blow up BU’s sense of security at Case, and in some sense, it’s season.
But he missed. The Terriers hung on, 68-66, for a 10th consecutive home victory, the program’s longest streak since 1996-97.
“I feel invincible at home,” Alexander said.
BU (14-14) just might be. Its 8-7 conference record is good enough for fifth place in the conference — one game behind fourth and two behind second — and it’s built entirely on home wins. The Terriers are one game away — against Lafayette to close the regular season on March 1 — from going undefeated at home during conference play. Their eight league wins at home are already the program’s most since 2004-05.
Entering Wednesday, the Terriers were scoring over 20 more points per game at home than on the road during league play. In multiple statistical categories, BU’s home numbers (conference-only) made it one of the best teams in the Patriot League; its road numbers made it the worst by a lightyear.
And even in the home games that BU hasn’t dominated — like Wednesday and Saturday’s double-overtime victory over four-time defending PL champion Colgate — Jones’ team has found a way. Without fail.
On Wednesday, BU willed itself to victory with only eight healthy rotation players.
“It’s been unbelievable, man,” Jones said of BU’s toughness at home.
The burning question, of course, is which version of his team is the real one. The discrepancy between BU’s home and road performances is so big, and so consistent, that it’s legitimately difficult to know the answer. But Jones was right on Wednesday when he said that, although BU's only put together one performance on the road even remotely good during PL play, his Terriers have still shown there’s a special team in there somewhere.
“There’s no way you do what we’ve done — win 10 straight at home — and not have a level of toughness and fortitude and the things you need to do to win,” Jones said.
So what are the things allowing BU to be so unbeatable at home? Well, Kyrone Alexander, for one thing.
Loyola couldn’t stop him. He finished with 20 points and was 8 of 9 on shots inside the arc, almost all of them mid-range jumpers. When the Greyhounds held a three-point lead with less than 90 seconds to play, BU ran a play for Alexander out of a timeout, and when he got the switch onto a bigger defender, the sophomore guard went into isolation mode, weaving his way to the elbow. He got the defender to bite on a fadeaway mid-ranger — a shot he’d made all night — then stepped in to draw the foul while nailing a jumper.
When the shot dropped through, Brewster threw his hands on top of his head in disbelief. BU’s leading scorer made the free throw to tie the game at 66.
“He bumped me, and at this point in the game, I thought it was a foul, so I expect a whistle, so I’m gonna try to get the and-one,” Alexander said. “And that’s what happened.”
On the Terriers’ next possession, Alexander drove against a Loyola guard, stopped on a dime in the paint and made a turnaround jumper to make it 68-66. It was the second time in as many games he’s nailed the game-winner at home.
Alexander barely reacted after either.
“The guys are very laid back,” Jones said. “So the thing that I’ve witnessed is that when you have guys that don’t get too high or too low, those are the guys that in big moments, they can perform.”
One of the players Jones admitted isn’t laid back is Brewster, his graduate co-captain, but he too has been stone cold in pressure situations this season. He was again on Wednesday, making two critical 3-pointers in the final five minutes with no hesitation.
The Terriers have been nails in crunch time all season — even on the road, in one instance. The problem, of course, is that BU hasn’t been competitive enough to put itself in those positions away from Case Gym often.
Jones has said that the Terriers, for some reason, lack in-game resilience on the road — that they’re slower to respond to runs from opponents or early deficits. BU has trailed after 10 minutes in 9 of its 15 games during conference play; three of those instances were at home, where the Terriers, obviously, are undefeated, the six others on the road, where they’re winless.
BU didn’t trail after 10 on Wednesday, but Loyola surged to take a sudden lead on three separate occasions. Each of the first two times, BU immediately responded with an 11-5 run out of a timeout Jones called. The third time was with six minutes to go, and Brewster and Alexander proceeded to carry BU to victory.
“Every run we go on, it gets amplified. When we get a stop or make a big play, the cheering, the loud energy, it gets us going a bit more,” Alexander said.
The Case Gym crowd was strong on Wednesday, as it has been for most of PL play since BU returned from winter break. But even during winter break, the Terriers still receive support every game from the school’s pep band, which plays songs during most timeouts, cheers relentlessly and bangs metal against the stands when opponents are shooting free throws. The band is something junior forward Otto Landrum shouted out after a home overtime victory over Bucknell a few weeks ago.
“I just f***ing — mind my language — love Case Gymnasium,” Landrum said then.
Part of the story occurs before tip-off, too. BU leaves Boston the day before road games — the Patriot League’s road trips are notoriously long — and Jones said the team “usually gets there around 6 or 7 p.m.,” after practicing back in Boston that morning.
“Getting used to a new environment quickly is really hard,” Landrum said.
But for home games? Case Gym is also BU’s practice gym. It’s essentially built into the school’s West Campus, and many of the Terriers live across the street. Alexander said players can return to their dorms right before games, and on Wednesday, one player was spotted at Chipotle only 90 minutes before tip.
“Everyone just has their routine,” Alexander said.
And that routine keeps ending in wins.
