The men's basketball team split its opening weekend of play at Cousens Gym, rallying to sink Lasell on Friday night before falling to tournament champion Rhode Island College on Saturday afternoon.
The Tufts Tip-Off Tournament featured top teams from four New England conferences, with RIC coming out of the Little East, the Jumbos from the NESCAC, and Endicott and Lasell Colleges representing the Commonwealth Coast Conference and North Atlantic Conference, respectively.
RIC cruised through the tournament, beating Endicott 73-59 Friday and Tufts 95-84 the following afternoon, starting its season 2-0 and dropping the Jumbos to an opening record of 1-1. Tufts topped the Lasell Lasers 85-80 the previous night but failed to come up with another win.
"We played defense a little bit for a little while, but then somebody would break down. Or we'd help in the wrong situation, and somebody would hit a jump shot," coach Bob Sheldon said. "We didn't take care of the details, and we weren't completing our plays all the way through on offense and defense."
Saturday's match-up was a back-and-forth game, featuring 20 lead changes and 14 ties. The game was last knotted at 72-72 with 8:30 remaining, at which point the Jumbos attempted to pull away with a quick six points. But the Anchormen came roaring back with a 23-6 run of their own, burying Tufts' hopes of a 2-0 start.
"We had the lead; we should have won that game, but we just couldn't," senior tri-captain Brian Fitzgerald said. "We're just playing a little sloppy right now."
The Jumbos were 5-for-23 from three-point range Saturday, turned the ball over 17 times, and perhaps most importantly, failed to contain RIC senior tri-captain and tournament MVP Kinsey Durgin, who lit up the Tufts defense for 23 points, including four threes.
"We had a little trouble with Kinsey," Sheldon said. "He's a little quicker than us ... He challenged our guys, and they got outplayed."
Despite the Jumbos' inability to finish Saturday, there were several bright spots. While Durgin earned the tournament's MVP, the All-Tournament Team featured two Jumbos - senior tri-captain Brian Kumf and sophomore forward Jon Pierce.
Kumf led the Jumbos Saturday with 15 points, chipping in with six rebounds in the losing effort. The previous night against Lasell, Kumf led all rebounders on both teams with 11. For a Tufts team that is still reeling from the loss of former center Dan Martin, the rebounding effort is still a work in progress.
"Without Dan, we have to do it more as a team," said Fitzgerald, who grabbed eight boards of his own against RIC. "Everyone's got to be willing to box out and just crash ... We haven't been doing that yet, but I think we will."
Pierce, a sophomore transfer from Drew University, immediately made his presence known in his Tufts debut. He led all scorers in the Lasell game with 26 points despite coming off the bench for the Jumbos.
"He can flat-out score," senior tri-captain Dave Shepherd said of Pierce. "We've got so many different guys who can score every night, but he's going to be a consistent scorer for us."
In the Lasell game, the Jumbos trailed by as many as 13 points in the second half, but came storming back in the final minutes. Junior forward Jake Weitzen had 22 points in his first career start, and junior guard Jeremy Black made the most of his only field goals of the game, coming off the bench to hit two crucial three-pointers in the final minutes.
Black's first basket of the game was a long three with 1:43 remaining, giving the Jumbos their first lead of the half at 79-78. Shepherd then came away with a clutch steal and fed Black for another trey. Black finished with seven points, and Shepherd had nine assists.
The Jumbo defense, which allowed 54 points in the first half, got much stronger in the second half, forcing Lasell to attempt a lot of off-balance shots. The Lasers finished the second half just 10 of 26 from the floor and an abysmal 1 of 10 from three-point range.
"The first half was atrocious," Shepherd said. "But the second half, we did much better. We held them to 26 points in the second half. No matter where you're at, or who you're playing, that's pretty good defense. So we know we can play - we've just got to bring the intensity."
The Jumbos' rocky start over the weekend may not be an indication of what's to come this season. The Jumbos looked explosive at times, and some of the shakiness may just be early-season kinks. Because of the NESCAC-wide Nov. 1 start date, this team has only been playing together for two weeks. Sheldon said he is still working out the kinks in the team's chemistry.
"We've only been going for two weeks," Sheldon said. "I hate to use that as an excuse, but [other teams] have been going for four, and I think that showed when it came down to crunch time. We've got to get into our rhythm."
