A defense can only carry a team so far, and on Wednesday night, the Binghamton University men’s basketball team couldn’t muster enough offense to capitalize on a strong defensive outing. The Bearcats (2-5) remained close throughout the game but ultimately fell, 65-54, to University of Pennsylvania.
Binghamton’s defense held Penn (2-5) to 34.5 percent shooting from the floor and forced 16 turnovers. But the offense shot just 29.3 percent from the field and 12.5 percent from beyond the arc while losing the ball 19 times.
“We defended well enough to win the game, but we just didn’t score well enough and we didn’t take care of the ball well enough,” Binghamton head coach Tommy Dempsey said.
Even though senior guard Jimmy Gray and junior forward Roland Brown found themselves in early foul trouble, Binghamton clawed back from a 20-11 first-half deficit to cut Penn’s lead to 22-21 with 7:52 left and entered the break down 39-34.
Early in the second half, Penn’s lead fluctuated between four and eight points. A Gray three-pointer with 12:26 remaining made the score 51-46.
From there, Binghamton would score just three points in the next 11 minutes and Penn would slowly amass an insurmountable lead.
“We dry up at times,” Dempsey said. “I thought Penn’s defense was really good. I thought when the game got snug they really buckled down defensively and we weren’t getting great shots. Some of the good shots we were getting didn’t fall.”
The Bearcats’ defensive game plan was predicated on a mixture of 2-3 zone and man-to-man to keep Penn off balance. Entering the night, the Quakers had two juniors combining to average 34 points per game in 6-foot-8 forward Fran Dougherty and 6-foot-3 guard Miles Cartwright. Dempsey had said he wanted to limit the duo’s production, as Penn’s other players were inexperienced, unknown commodities.
The Bearcats successfully contained Dougherty and Cartwright to the tune of 26 total points on 8-of-22 shooting, but the other Quakers stepped up. Penn’s bench scored 32 points on 6-of-14 3-point shooting. Zones frequently afford offenses looks from beyond the arc, but Dempsey said a decent number of the 3-point attempts were contested.
“They did make some timely threes, and they had some guys that hadn’t done much make some threes, and that certainly hurt us, but overall I thought the mix of man and zone was very effective,” Dempsey said.
Binghamton freshman Jordan Reed posted a game-high 17 points and, with 11 rebounds, notched his fourth double-double in five games. His ability to gain possession of the ball for Binghamton and draw fouls — he ranks No. 10 nationally with 8.5 fouls drawn per 40 minutes, according to www.kenpom.com — helped the Bearcats stay in the game. He shot just 5-of-18 from the floor, however, and 7-of-12 from the charity stripe.
Junior guard Rayner Moquete joined Reed as the only other Bearcat in double figures with 10 points on 4-of-10 shooting, and classmate Alex Ogundadegbe had a career-high 12 rebounds — five offensive — to go along with six points in 28 minutes.
“That was the best game I’ve seen [Ogundadegbe] have,” Dempsey said. “He was all over the place. He was tough, he was active, he was fighting for rebounds, he was really good in the middle of the zone. He embraced the challenge of going against some of their good big guys.”
Gray, who entered the contest averaging 35 minutes per game, logged just 22 minutes due to foul trouble. He scored five points on 2-of-7 shooting and posted two assists to three turnovers.
The Bearcats are set to return to action on Saturday, when they host Mount St. Mary’s University at the Events Center. The Mountaineers (2-3) beat America East member University of Hartford on Nov. 13 and George Washington University on Monday. With two of their losses coming at the hands of University of Pittsburgh and Georgetown University, their early record is somewhat deceptive.
Tipoff is scheduled for 2 p.m.