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Kethan Savage had himself a night on Wednesday. The sophomore guard's career-best 22 points, eight rebounds and four assists lifted the George Washington Colonials to a 70-60 win over Boston University and another solid non-conference performance for Mike Lonergan's team.
Savage, Maurice Creek and Joe McDonald led a second-half surge for the Colonials that saw them overcome a 41-32 deficit with 14:24 left in the game to take a 45-44 lead at the 9:11 mark. Back-to-back jumpers by Creek stretched the lead to six, and GW never turned back. The trio of guards combined for 52 points, 25 rebounds, seven assists and five steals to dominate its matchup with BU's perimeter players.
D.J. Irving scored a game-high 23 points for BU and Mo Watson Jr. added 12 points, six assists and four rebounds, but John Papale disappeared on offense due to the effort he was expending on the defensive end against Savage. That group of players, specifically Irving and Watson, are going to help BU win a ton of games in the Patriot League this year, but they were no match for GW on Wednesday night.
What makes these three players so difficult to handle is that they all do pretty much everything very well. McDonald (20 points, 9 rebounds) is extremely unselfish, but knows when its time to look for his own offense. Creek (10 points, 8 rebounds) is as patient an offensive player as you'll find in the country and is a diligent cutter away from the ball. As for Savage, he showed tonight that when the focus falls to his backcourt mates he is more than capable of taking on a leading role.
Isaiah Armwood (4 points, 4 rebounds, 2 blocks) and Kevin Larsen (11 points, 6 rebounds, 2 blocks) made their presence felt inside and kept BU from doing anything on the block. Larsen buried a shot with 5:38 left that stretched the lead to nine and you could almost see the air go out of BU's comeback effort. Irving would answer it with a three a few possessions later, but after Larsen's bucket the Terriers never got closer than six for the remainder of the game.
This game came down to mentality, however, and GW brought a much more aggressive one. In a day and age where going towards the basket is almost a guarenteed trip to the free throw line, BU only shot eight free throws for the game, making five of them. Conversely, everything GW did was headed to the rim and the result was a 22-for-31 night at the stripe.
With the win, GW improved to 9-1 on the season and 6-0 at home. BU falls to 6-4 and 2-3 away from home.
