Somehow, 40 wasn't enough.
As expected, it was junior co-captain Jon Pierce who carried the men's basketball team on his back in last night's season opener against Babson in Cousens Gym. And try as he did, he just couldn't carry them far enough.
What will go down in the record books as the best game of Pierce's career -- he shot 14-for-21 from the floor, 4-for-6 from beyond the arc and 8-for-12 from the charity stripe for 40 points, a career high -- will ultimately also go down as just another loss. Pierce's performance, the ninth 40-point game in Tufts history, yielded a 90-88 overtime loss for the Jumbos. The Beavers' senior captain, Zach Etten, buried a running jumper with one second left, and that was it. The stat that matters most is the one in the standings: 0-1.
"It just proves that when one player scores 40, it's still not a guaranteed win," Pierce said. "We have to go back to the drawing board, look at film and figure out what was working for [junior Dave] Beyel and [senior co-captain Aaron] Gallant in the first half that we went away from in the second. We need to come out this weekend and make an effort to make sure everyone's involved -- because 40 isn't enough."
Beyel and Gallant, the team's two leading returning scorers behind Pierce, were expected to pick up the slack and support their All-American teammate, and in the first half, everything went according to plan. The Jumbos went into the break with a comfortable 42-32 lead behind 13 points from Pierce, 11 from Beyel and nine from Gallant.
But following halftime, Babson's defense successfully stifled the Tufts wings, limiting Beyel and Gallant to a combined eight points.
"They made some really good adjustments, getting up on the wing," Beyel said. "And Jon did a good job recognizing that we were having a tough time getting to the basket. He took over and did a great job. It's just something we've got to work on. When they get up on the wings and they challenge us at the guard positions, Jon's not going to be there to throw us on his back every game."
"We want Jon to score, obviously, but not 40 a game," coach Bob Sheldon said. "We've got to get it so that other guys are involved. But we've got guys who have never played 25 minutes -- everybody else around him. Aaron's the only one that's played over 20 minutes a game. We're asking guys to play 20, 25, and it's going to take a little time to get them into the game."
While the Babson defense clamped down on the supporting cast around Pierce, the Beaver offense did everything it could to enable a superstar of its own. Etten, a first-team All-NEWMAC shooting guard, played a game-high 41 minutes and shot 8-of-15 from the floor to finish with 25 points and 10 rebounds.
Shelton Ladson, a Babson sophomore guard with zero career starts to his name, had a breakout game with 24 points of his own. The Jumbos were struggling for answers, especially in the second half.
"We got 82 points -- it was 82-82 before overtime," Sheldon said. "It's our defense. We've got to pick up our defense. And we started out great with our defense, but then we let up a little bit."
"We just couldn't get the stops as a team when we needed to," Pierce said. "We came out with great intensity in those first five minutes, we got up 10-0, and we only gave up 15 points in the first 11 minutes of the game. Then, we just let up a bit.
"And when you let up at this level, no matter who you're playing, they have players who can make shots," he continued. "That's on me as a captain that I didn't rally the guys together. And I myself didn't play better D and make that a point of emphasis. I'll take this one on the chin tonight."
The Beavers opened the second half on a 9-2 lead, and that push eventually gave them the momentum to force their way back into the game. Another scoring spree later in the half made it 75-74 with 3:32 to play, and it was back and forth the rest of the way. The Beavers shot 18-for-33 (55 percent) in the second half.
"We came out really flat in the second half," Beyel said. "The first half was how we should have played."
When Babson made the game close in the second, the Jumbos relied on their big men to keep the defense solid inside. Pierce never left the floor between the middle of the second half and the final buzzer of overtime. He finished with 39 minutes; junior Tom Selby contributed 35.
"Honestly, I was just going on adrenaline," Pierce said. "And the thing is, the way we've run practice this year, because we're so young and we don't have a lot of bigs, Tom and I have played pretty much all of practice, every day, up and down. I feel like I'm in the best shape of my life, so honestly, fatigue didn't really factor in."
Fatigue or not, something wasn't working for the Jumbos down the stretch. And for a Tufts team that hit a frustrating wall last year to finish 11-13 and hasn't gotten out of the NESCAC first round since the 2005-06 season, something has got to give.
"It's looking a little too much like the last two years," Beyel said. "It sucks to be here, but you can only go up from here. We've got to do some work."
"This is going to be a defining moment for us," Sheldon said. "How do we bounce back? Are we going to start down that slope that we did last year when we lost a couple of close ones? Are we going to come into practice Thursday with our heads up and go at it?"
