Seawolves Fall 56-54 in Final Seconds

BOSTON – The program that Steve Pikiell built spent more than 20 minutes on Saturday building something of its own: a 15-point lead over No. 2 Boston University in the America East conference championship.

But BU, seeking its sixth conference title and seventh trip to the NCAA tournament, climbed back in the game on the strength of 23 second-half points from America East player of the year John Holland, who made two free throws with 2.4 seconds left in the game to give the Terriers the 56-54 win over No. 5 Stony Brook.

It was BU's first lead of the game, and it came just at the right time for the Terriers to finish on top. Following those free throws – the result of a ref's questionable call on Dallis Joyner which some said should have actually been a traveling call on Holland – Bryan Dougher had one last chance, but his half-court shot hit the rim as time expired.

"One of our keys was to defend [Holland] and keep him from the free throw line," head coach Steve Pikiell said after the game. "We knew we could defend him, but you can’t defend the free throw. ... At the end of the game he kind of took over the game. I would have liked the game to go into overtime."

The Seawolves' defense limited Holland to just four points in the first half, but seemed unable to keep it up for the remainder of the game. With Stony Brook leading 41-30, Holland scored seven unanswered points – including a three-pointer and a dunk off of his own steal – in under a minute to close the gap to four. Pikiell tried putting a few different defenders on Holland, but said "none of them really seemed to be effective on him." He finished with 27 points and 11 rebounds and was named the America East tournament's most outstanding player.

"He’s big and he’s athletic," Pikiell said. "We tried everyone on him, from Preye Preboye to Chris Martin to Dave Coley. He’s beaten us all year."

Compounding that was the number of times Stony Brook sent BU to the line. The Terriers made 24 of 29 free throws in the game, including 8 of 8 in the final four minutes. Stony Brook made 14 of 15 attempts in the game, but failed in its original game plan of limiting those opportunities for BU.

"Our game plan was to not put them to the free throw line," Pikiell said. "I hate the fact that they won from the free throw line. That bothers me. We didn’t follow through on that."

Stony Brook looked hungry for the entire first half, as sophomore Leonard Hayes scored 14 points en route to a 30-23 halftime lead for the Seawolves. They played most of that period without one of its key players, Chris Martin, who picked up two early fouls and headed to the bench. Dougher started off the second half right, scoring the Seawolves' first seven points for their largest lead of the game, 41-26. He finished with 12 points.

"We played good for the first 35 minutes of the game and just fell apart. BU’s a great team. I don’t know what else to say," said Martin, the team's lone graduating senior, who finished the game with 12 points.

Stony Brook (15-17) entered the game hoping to ride the momentum of two previous upsets in the conference tournament to pull off one more in the championship game and earn its first-ever spot in the NCAA tournament.

"BU obviously had the best player on the floor," Pikiell said. "But I’m proud of our guys and we’ll be back. Our program’s in a good place and it’s going to remain that way."

Missed the big game? for a gallery of photos and video from Agganis Arena on Saturday.