Almost one year ago, the men's basketball team handily defeated the Lesley University Lynx 92-52 in their most lopsided victory since 1998. After the game, coach Bob Sheldon speculated that Tufts wouldn't be facing Lesley anymore in the future because the squad saw "better competition in practice."
But the Lynx found their way onto the Jumbos' schedule again this year, and unfortunately for Tufts, the rematch on Tuesday ended very differently. The Jumbos fell to Lesley 57-55 in a shocking upset and dropped to 0-4 in non-league play, their worst start to a season in over 10 years.
Lesley sophomore Shawn Simmons hit a backbreaking three-pointer to give the Lynx the final lead with 14 seconds remaining. Tufts had a chance to tie the score up at 57 and send it to overtime on a late fast break opportunity, but Lesley junior center Jesus Trejo swatted away junior forward Sam Mason's layup attempt and any hopes of the Jumbos getting their first win.
Tufts held the lead consistently throughout the first half, going up by as many as 11 points on the Lynx. Led by two of its senior tri-captains — Jon Pierce, who scored 12 points in the period, and Dan Cook, who added 11 of his own — Tufts shot 45.5 percent in the first period and enjoyed a 33-28 advantage at halftime. However, the Jumbos negated their shooting efficiency with eight turnovers, and defensive mistakes allowed the Lynx to tally 12 points from free throws.
"Going into the half up by five is not what we wanted," said junior guard Matt Galvin, who had 10 assists in his 34 minutes of play. "We wanted a bigger lead. And then, the second half we just had the same problem we've had all year: not getting points when we need them.
"I think the first half of the first half we played alright," Galvin continued. "But even then our shot selection was not as good as we would like. They pressed us all game and we got through their press all game pretty easily, but once we got to half court we really struggled. They also went 19-24 from the free throw line. If you take away even half of those points, we win the game."
In the second half, ball protection and rebounding were issues for the Jumbos, who surrendered 15 points off 11 turnovers and were outrebounded 16-10. Again, fouls hurt Tufts, as Lesley continued to shoot well from the line and finished at 79.2 percent, far above their average coming into the game.
"Usually we have that moment in a game where everything just clicks into place and everything's working," Galvin said. "But we just haven't had that moment. Hopefully it will come soon."
"We just didn't execute offensively," Pierce added. "We didn't always get good shots, we weren't always listening as a team to the plays our coach was calling and we were forcing to the basket. We weren't always protecting the ball and had some bad turnovers. You put those things together and you let a team beat us that shouldn't beat us."
In spite of the loss, Pierce put up his usual solid numbers, finishing 11-of-16 from the floor for a game-high 23 points. The showing helped bring his career total to 1,505 points, making him the fifth Jumbo to pass the 1,500 mark and fifth-leading scorer in program history.
Tufts will have plenty of chances to find a way to set things right and potentially pick up a win in the coming week, which brings three games in four days. The schedule doesn't leave much practice time for the recovering Jumbos as they prepare to face Keene State tonight. Then Tufts will take on Babson and the winner of the Salem State-Brandeis matchup in the inaugural Big Four Challenge Tournament on Saturday and Sunday.
"Obviously we have to work through these things during the games because of our upcoming schedule," Galvin said. "There's just not a lot of time to practice, but I think the good thing about playing this many games in such a short period of time is that you can't focus on the negative stuff — you just have to keep going and move on. We just want to be playing well going into the break so we can come back knowing what we have to do when we start league play."
"Our schedule is a good thing and a bad thing," Pierce said. "It's going to get the taste of the start of the season out of our mouths, but we just haven't been playing good basketball like we know how to play. 0-4 is as low as you can be, so we need to get a win in these next games."
