It seems that the 2010-11 men's basketball season may already be on track for success.
The Jumbos on Saturday night rallied in the second half to pull away from Skidmore for a 79-67 win at Cousens Gym. The victory marks the first time the team has won a season opener since 2006 — the last season Tufts posted a winning record — and the excitement among the team was tangible.
"I really can't even describe it," sophomore Alex Goldfarb said. "After last season, it feels great to start off on the right foot. We just have to take it one game at a time, though. We have a much deeper team this year, so we all need to keep working hard and keep getting better."
To the 400 fans present, the Jumbos looked like a completely new team. And after graduating their two leading scorers in Jon Pierce and Dave Beyel (both LA '10), they have practically become one.
Goldfarb came into the game as the only remaining go-to shooter, and he did not disappoint. Off the bench, the second-year guard went 4-for-5 from the 3-point arc and finished with a game-high 18 points. Junior forward Alex Orchowski — a transfer from Div. I Lafayette — lived up to his preseason hype as well, tallying an impressive 13 points and 17 rebounds. It was the most boards by a Jumbo since Pierce grabbed the same number in December 2008.
Junior tri-captain James Long also came up big in his new role, putting together a double-double with 12 points and 11 boards off the bench when sophomore Scott Anderson got into foul trouble early.
The underclassmen also stepped up, thriving when given the chance to prove their worth. The bench combined for 34 points, something rarely seen in the past few seasons when scoring was primarily dominated by Pierce and Beyel. The Jumbos had five players hit double digits on the night.
"I think it is just a completely different dynamic with a lot of guys coming off the bench," Long said. "We're definitely a lot deeper this year with guys on the bench we know can contribute both offensively and defensively. We changed a lot of things up, and we're going to be running the floor a lot more. I think we just spread the ball around a lot more than last year and everyone's just getting their touches."
Though the Thoroughbreds held a slight edge early on, their shooting fell off as the game moved on, and they finished at a poor 33.8 percent. The Jumbos, on the other hand, were both precise and efficient, shooting 50.9 percent and earning 25 second-chance points.
The visitors jumped out to a 24-18 lead on two free throws with a little under 10 minutes to go in the first half, but it was the last time the Thoroughbreds would be in control. Tufts came back to tie it at 24 on an alley-oop dunk by Orchowski from senior tri-captain Matt Galvin. The play ignited both the crowd and the team — effectively rattling Skidmore's shooters for the remainder of the game.
The teams exchanged baskets for the rest of the half, but a timely 3-pointer from Goldfarb put the Jumbos up 37-36 at intermission.
"We had a good talk at halftime about maintaining a high level of energy and not letting up," Long said. "They had a couple guys that could really shoot the ball and we were drifting off them too far in the first half. … Essentially, we were leaving shooters open. We had too many possessions in the first half where we would play good defense for 20 seconds and then give up an open 3. … We just talked a lot about staying on shooters and preventing uncontested jumpers."
The Thoroughbreds answered briefly in the second half, evening the score at 41 just three minutes in. But Tufts pulled away with a 7-0 run and never looked back, extending the lead to double digits. Though Skidmore cut it to six with a small run of its own, Goldfarb put it away with a pair of 3s, making it 60-48.
After that, the Jumbos held strong defensively, never letting the Thoroughbreds within 10 points.
"At the end, we just stayed composed." Goldfarb said. "Last year, we had trouble closing teams out once we had a lead. We had a couple bad turnovers late in the game, but overall we were able to stay focused and just hit our free throws."
For at least one night, Tufts seemed to have solved the problems that plagued the team in 2009, including rebounding and distribution of scoring. But one issue reared its ugly head once again, as the Jumbos relinquished 27 points off turnovers — a total that will need to be quickly reduced. But Tufts has the tools to improve these issues, with a lot of young players proving their ball-handling skills throughout the game.
"I'd say the biggest thing we're going to have to do is take better care of the ball when we're trying to run on the fast break," Long said. "We're trying to get out on the fast break a little more, and that's going to lead to some turnovers. … I think some of that was first-game jitters, but we're going to continue to get out and run the ball more and we're just going to have to make better decisions on the break."
Tufts on Tuesday will travel to Regis for its second game of the season and will look to feed off its newfound energy and team cohesion to start the season at 2-0 — something that the program has not done in the NESCAC era.
"We're all excited," Goldfarb said. "As of now we don't know too much about Regis. We have great team chemistry this year on and off the court and we're just ready to turn it around this season."
