The men's basketball team's three-game winning streak grinded to a halt on Tuesday night after an 84-76 loss to Babson College.
The Beavers have won six of their last eight, while the loss for the Jumbos was a potential stumbling block for their postseason aspirations.
"We're not happy," senior co-captain guard Dave Shepherd said. "This loss will keep us from reaching that 20-win plateau that [would] help us get into the NCAA's."
The two teams traded blows for the first five minutes of the game. But with a precarious 12-11 at the 15:20 mark of the first half, Babson rattled off a 20-0 run over the next seven minutes. Fueled by their aggressive, opportunistic defense, the Beavers built a 21-point lead, their largest of the game.
"They play an entirely different style of defense than anybody else we've faced," junior forward Jake Weitzen said. "Every time anybody posted up - even a point guard - or anybody drove the lane, they'd double-team him. We struggled adjusting to it in the first half."
During Tufts' seven-minute scoring drought, the team shot 0-9 from the field and turned the ball over six times.
"As a team, we feed off of our offense," Weitzen said. "We were turning the ball over a lot, so it's tough to stop them when they're running out in transition."
Also contributing to their poor first half was the Jumbos' uncharacteristic inaccuracy from the floor, as they shot just 33.3 percent and 21.4 percent on threes for the period.
"I think we were taking rushed shots," Weitzen said. "Those weren't necessarily the three-pointers we wanted to take, but the ones that we felt like we should."
The Jumbos clawed back into the game, three times closing to within 12, but back-to-back three-pointers by sophomore guard Zach Etten before the halftime buzzer pushed Babson's lead back to 18. The teams headed to the locker rooms with the Beavers enjoying a 49-31 cushion.
"We made a pretty good run in the first half to cut it to 12, but they just hit a couple of clutch threes. Those shots were big," Shepherd said.
Tufts tightened up on defense in the second half, holding the Beavers to just 35 points on 9-of-22 shooting, and enabling the Jumbos to slowly play itself back into the game. Sparked by senior co-captain Brian Fitzgerald's three-point play, a 13-2 run brought Tufts within single digits at 57-48 with 12:45 remaining. Junior guard Ryan O'Keefe and sophomore forward Jon Pierce combined for eight straight points to bring the Jumbos to within three, 70-67, with 3:22 remaining.
But after expending so much energy to close the gap, the Jumbos could not get over the hump. Babson pushed its advantage to 75-69 with just over a minute remaining and knocked down nine out of 10 late free throws to seal the game.
"We had them on the ropes there at the end," Shepherd said. "They got nervous, but we just couldn't finish them off."
Tufts' five-game road trip culminates in two games this weekend against conference foes Middlebury and Williams. Dating back to the 2002-03 season, the Jumbos have taken five of their last six from Middlebury, which will enter this Friday's contest with an overall record of 12-7, and a 2-3 league record. The Panthers have struggled lately, dropping four out of their last five, including three straight NESCAC games.
On Saturday, Tufts will face a struggling Williams Ephs team that has dropped four of its last six. The last time the two teams met was in last year's NESCAC Tournament, a game the Jumbos won 101-89.
"I think we're going to bounce back just like we did after the Bates loss," Shepherd said.
"We're best when we're not comfortable," Weitzen added. "When we feel overly relaxed, that's when we start to fall apart as a team."