Terriers advance to semis
As he crossed midcourt, Eric Johnson picked up his dribble and tried to find an open teammate, but was unsuccessful. The junior guard for Boston University got double-teamed and was forced to call a timeout, and he slammed the ball down in frustration and yelled a few words to himself. BOSTON UNIV. 64 LOYOLA (MD.) 60
The Terriers had seen their once commanding lead shrink to four with just over five minutes left, and things were getting tight. The lead was slipping away, and going one-and-done in the Patriot League tournament for a third straight year was starting to become a real possibility for BU.
“That’s all weighing on your head,” BU coach Joe Jones admitted. “No matter what you want to say, that’s in the back of your mind when you haven’t done it.”
But as the adage goes, it’s just about surviving and advancing at this point in the season. Despite 18 turnovers and poor 3-point shooting, BU escaped with a 64-60 victory over Loyola (Md.) in the Patriot League quarterfinals last night at Case Gym.
With the victory, the Terriers (18-13) advance to Sunday’s semifinals, where they’ll host Lehigh at noon for a trip to next Wednesday’s championship game.
“I told our guys that if we win this, we’re going to win this ugly,” Jones said. “We have to be able to play through some bad possessions at times and some mistakes we make, but it’s gonna be done ugly.
“We have to be able to embrace that. We can win ugly.”
BU built a lead that grew to as many as 16 early in the second half, but it always seemed like the Terriers should have been up by more. They left points at the free throw line and turnovers and missed opportunities were adding up.
Jones knew the Greyhounds (15-16) were going to make their run, and they did. Despite coughing it up 18 times, Loyola took advantage of BU’s 11 second-half turnovers and inability to close the door.
Behind Andre Walker’s game-high 27 points and a combined five second-half treys from Walker and Andrew Kostecka, the Greyhounds made it a one-possession game in the final minute.
“I just feel like we didn’t get to Kostecka and Walker,” Jones said. “If we did a better job defending those guys and not letting those guys get 3’s off, I thought we would have done a solid job defensively.
“I thought that was the big difference. We did a lousy job (on them).”
After Walker’s layup made it 62-60 with 50 seconds to go, Tyler Scanlon misfired on a 3 — BU finished 3-for20 from long range — and Loyola had a chance to tie or take the lead. But the Terriers made a defensive stand as the Greyhounds got two cracks at it near the rim, and Kyle Foreman made a pair of free throws to seal it.
Foreman finished with a team-high 12 points, while Justin Alston had 11 points and seven boards and came up big defensively in the final moments.
“I think we can play much better than we did (last night) and we’re going to have to going forward,” Jones said. “We’re going to have to play much better than we did (last night), and I think we will.”