Shouldering a pair of losses on the road this past week and with just three weeks remaining until its first America East matchup, the Binghamton men’s basketball team is in crunch time to find its rhythm.
Though BU (1-11) fell, 63-49, to ACC-member Boston College on Sunday afternoon, the team fought back after a first half plagued by turnovers to prevent the Eagles (6-3) from pulling away. The Bearcats scored 31 second-half points — as many as their hosts — but couldn’t find a consistent offensive rhythm to let them come any closer than 12 after entering the second half down, 32-18.
“We battled for sure,” BU head coach Tommy Dempsey said. “And we had some offensive spurts in the second half … but we just couldn’t string enough passes together to get it close enough.”
While the Bearcats’ offensive struggles persisted into this game — they shot 25 percent from the field in the first half, entering the locker rooms converting just 3 of their last 17 shot attempts — Justin McFadden took his turn at a breakout rookie performance on Sunday.
The 6-foot-5 guard out of Philadelphia has been a defensive staple for Binghamton all season. McFadden is averaging 3.3 rebounds and 1.3 assists in 24.6 minutes per contest in his first year with BU, and recorded a second-best 10 steals and eight blocks for BU through 12 games. But against BC, he led the offensive effort as well. He scored a team-high 18 points, which tied for the game high, and pulled down a game-high nine boards, four of them offensive. He shot 5 for 8 from the field and finished a perfect 8 for 8 from the line.
But for all that, McFadden was the only Bearcat to score in double-digits. BC did its homework — the Eagles knew to contain freshman forward Dusan Perovic, the team’s leading point-scorer this season. Perovic was swarmed every time he got the ball, and was held to just five points as a result.
On the defensive end of things, however, Binghamton was more effective. The team ran a zone defense rather than a press, which helped the Bearcats contain BC’s 7-foot, 250-pound junior center Dennis Clifford.
“I thought we played really good defense and gave ourselves a chance to win,” Dempsey said. “We just couldn’t find enough offense to get the game as close as we needed it to be to get a chance to win. But we didn’t let them run away from us and I thought that was because we were really competitive.”
The Eagles drained 7 of 10 shots to open the game, getting out to an early 18-7 lead in the first eight minutes. Binghamton committed 12 turnovers in the half, leading to 16 Boston points, which didn’t make closing the gap any easier.
In the second half, Binghamton buckled down. Small offensive spurts from freshman guard Romello Walker, freshman forward Willie Rodriguez and McFadden brought the Bearcats to within 12 points multiple times through the half, but the Eagles prevailed.
The loss to BC comes on the heels of a 65-44 loss to Colgate University on Thursday. In that game, Perovic led BU with 16 points on 7-of-14 shooting, including 2-of-4 from behind the arc.
After the Bearcats had pulled to within three, 14-11, with 5:38 remaining in the half, they shot just 1 for 7 to enter halftime down, 26-16. Despite playing a more productive second half, BU couldn’t bounce back. Colgate (3-8) shot 60.7 percent from the floor in the second half, embarking on 15-0 run and draining 39 points to pull away to a nearly 20-point victory.
Sophomore forward Nick Madray followed Perovic in scoring, adding nine points and seven rebounds.
Next up for BU is a home match against St. Bonaventure University on Saturday. Tip-off is set for 2 p.m. at the Events Center.