The old adage — that sometimes the best offense is a good defense — rang true for the Binghamton men’s basketball team at home on Wednesday night. The Bearcats (1-2) held Divison III Hartwick to shooting at a 33 percent clip throughout the game. They forced 19 Hawk turnovers and scored 31 points off of those takeaways. Thanks to its stout defense, BU cruised to an easy 82-51 victory in its home opener.
“I thought we took care of business tonight,” Binghamton head coach Tommy Dempsey said. “I was pleased with our overall performance. [It’s] still early in the year, so there are a lot of things we need to clean up. But we were on a mission tonight. We needed to bounce back, we needed to play well and we needed to win our first game at home. And we were able to do that.”
Capitalizing on its opportunities from beyond the arc, Hartwick (1-2) kept the game close early in the first half. The Hawks drained four treys in the opening nine minutes of play, trailing Binghamton by just three points, 17-14, with a quarter of the game under their belts.
“Our whole game plan was to not let them breathe from behind the 3-point line,” Dempsey said. “We had some lapses at times in the first half. We set out to hold them scoreless from the three… I know that is a tall task. We knew they were going to come in here and try to shoot us out of the gym.”
A tall task, but not as tall as the 7-foot-2 competition the Bearcats saw Monday night against Providence. Coming off a testing weekend against high-calibered teams, the Bearcat defense clamped down at home. BU upped its pressure defense and the out-matched Hawks looked exhausted at times. The Bearcats forced seven Hartwick turnovers in the next 11 minutes of action, scoring 16 points off of their resulting possessions. Heading into the locker room, the hosts commanded a 41-25 lead.
“We see a lot of things working and we are building on it,” sophomore point guard Yosef Yacob said. “The press looked good today.”
The opening minutes of the second half were almost identical to the closing moments of the first. BU freshman guard Justin McFadden drained a 3-pointer to open up scoring in the period. McFadden then stole the ensuing pass off of the press and dished the ball to Yacob, who promptly drained a trey of his own.
With their lead inflated to 22 points, the Bearcats never looked back. They pushed their advantage to 30 with four minutes remaining. When the final buzzer sounded, the Bearcats earned their first regular-season victory by a 31-point margin.
For the game, the Bearcats’ defense forced a total of 19 turnovers while collecting 12 steals and recording four blocks. BU also limited their visitors on the glass, allowing just eight offensive rebounds in the game.
“In the second half, I thought we smothered them pretty well with the press and got to shooters,” Dempsey said. “That’s where [the game] changed — our pressure and our ability to pressure shooters. I thought they got tired. I think the press fatigued them and I think that hurt their ability to make threes in the second half. And then we were able to put them away.”
Offensively, the Bearcats were led by freshman forward Dusan Perovic. Perovic, who scored a team-high 13 points in BU’s loss to Providence (2-0), poured in a game-high 18 against Hartwick. He demonstrated a crafty right-handed hook shot in the post and an ability to shoot from the distance, knocking down two threes. Following Perovic was Yacob, who chipped in 14.
“It was a huge build-up for my confidence,” Perovic said about his performance. “The coaches work a lot with me during practice and they build a lot of confidence to go inside first and then work my way outside. They believe that I can take those hook shots and make them.”
Binghamton is set to pick up its Hall of Fame Tip-off Tournament action on Saturday from Mohegan Sun, Conn. First up is Manhattan at 5:30 p.m. at Mohegan Sun Arena.