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BOSTON, Mass. -- To say Ed DeChellis was not impressed with his team's effort on Tuesday night against Boston University would be a massive understatement. The Navy coach was so disgusted with the effort put forth by his team in the first half of its third Patriot League game that he sat Brandon Venturini for the entire second period and played the other four starters a combined eight minutes in the final 20.
The result was a 55-32 win for the Terriers that lifts them to 3-0 in their inaugural year in the Patriot League while Navy drops to 1-2.
"I think we played the worst basketball game of the year, and I don't really have a reason why," DeChellis said as he sat down in the press room of Agganis Arena. "We played pretty well at Loyola and had a chance to win, we played OK the other night against Lafayette and won, and then we came up here and didn't do any of the things we did the previous two games. That was really disappointing."
Neither team came out like a house afire, but BU was able to take advantage of a pair of high energy plays by sophomore forward Nathan Dieudonne. The first play was an old-fashioned three-point play that featured some nifty footwork, but the second was a showstopping dunk in the lane off a beautiful pass from Maurice Watson Jr. The former Mr. Basketball from Kentucky finished with 10 points and five rebounds on 4-of-5 shooting for his best outing of the young Patriot League campaign.
Watson continued to play like the best point guard in the conference, scoring 11 points to go with six rebounds and six assists against just two turnovers. His ability to read how the other team is playing him proved valuable time and again as he created open shots for others by simply being a threat...to do anything. Watson entered the game with a 50 percent assist rate (assists divided by FG made when player is on the floor), per KenPom.com, which is good for second in the country and lends itself to quantifying Watson's impact on BU's offense.
D.J. Irving had a tough night shooting the ball, but finished with nine points and seven rebounds as he continues to find ways to affect the game when his scoring isn't there. The Watson/Irving/John Papale trio had itself a strong game as lineups including those three played 19:43 and posted a plus-minus rating of +17. Not a bad night at the office for Joe Jones' backcourt.
On the Navy side of the court, no player managed more than seven points as the Midshipmen squandered any momentum they had gained in their first two games. Grant Veemer scored all seven of his points in the second half while James Hemphill earned some kind words from DeChellis in the postagame.
