BOSTON, Mass. -- The Navy men's basketball team battled from the start of the game to the end of a 70-61 Patriot League Tournament quarterfinal round loss to Boston University, Thursday night at Case Gym in Boston.  The win by the second-seeded Terriers (16-16) over the seventh-seeded Mids (13-18) advances Boston to Sunday's semifinal round where it will face No. 6 Lehigh.

Each team entered the game on a five-game winning streak.  

"Very, very proud of our team," said Navy head coach Ed DeChellis.  "We had a bad spell there at the end of January into February.  These kids worked their brains off and worked hard and got ourselves out of it.  We played some good basketball down the stretch.  Tonight was hard for us.  We didn't play our best game, and we made a lot of mistakes.  We really couldn't score.  We didn't shoot the ball very well.  We had some shots we normally make and tonight we couldn't put the ball in the basket.  That affected us on the defensive end, as well."

The Terriers slowly built leads of 7-2, 16-6 and 25-12 as they were the first team to find a rhythm on offense.  Boston eventually led, 32-20 and 33-22, but Navy closed to within 33-27 at halftime.

Mac MacDonald had the last five points of the half and seven points in all off the bench to spark the late rally.

Navy scored the opening basket of the second half to draw to within four points at 33-29.  BU answered with a triple on its way to regaining a double-digit lead at 39-29.  The Mids winnowed the margin down to six points at both 43-37 and 48-42.  Boston scored the next six points to double the lead out to 54-42 with just under 10 minutes remaining.

Navy whittled the deficit to seven points at 58-51, and then had a possession while trailing 61-53 but came up empty.  The Terriers scored on the other end and then made two foul shots on their next opportunity to build a 12-point lead at 65-53 with three minutes still to play.

Again the Mids battled back and a pair of free throws by Mike Woods with 1:10 left made the score 65-59.  Navy put on the full court press and Boston had to call two timeouts before it could advance the ball into the front court.  When play resumed, Ethan Okwuosa broke loose for a layup to make it an eight-point game (67-59).  A missed triple by Navy was followed by Boston making one foul shot to stretch the lead to nine at 68-59 with just 32 seconds still to play.

"We just couldn't make the big play," said DeChellis. 

Boston, which earned a first-round bye in the tournament, shot 50 percent from the field in the second half and 41 percent for the game while Navy, which defeated Loyola Tuesday night in a first round game played in Annapolis, shot 36.1 percent from the floor on the night.  This included the Terriers going 7-24 (29.2%) from three-point range and the Mids connecting on 4-24 (16.7%) three-point attempts.

Teams winning first round games in the tournament have now posted just a 3-18 record in the quarterfinal round in the 11 years of this format.

Navy narrowly won the rebounding statistic, 40-39, and finished with 16 offensive boards while allowing 14.  However, Boston led, 13-10, in second-chance points.  The Terriers also held a 32-18 advantage in bench points.

Austin Benigni, who earned both second-team all-league and academic all-league honors this year, scored 22 points and dished out five assists. It was his 27th game this season with 10 or more points, his ninth with at least 20 points and his 10th with both at least 10 points and five assists.  He ends the season with 526 points, which ranks 13th overall in Navy history and second to David Robinson's total of 756 for the most by a sophomore.  Additionally, his 177 made free throws ranks fifth at Navy and is the most since Chris Harris made 178 in 2009-10.

Donovan Draper pulled down 14 rebounds this evening. That tied him with Tom Lacey for the most by a Mid in a Patriot League Tournament game.  Draper, who was a member of the Navy football team last year as a freshman, snared 283 rebounds this year.  That ranks third at Navy among sophomores, eighth among Mids regardless of class year and is the most by a Navy player since Robinson grabbed 378 in the 1986-87 season.

MacDonald added seven second-half points to end the game with 14.  Aidan Kehoe joined Draper with double-digit caroms as he finished with 10.  

"Proud of our guys," said DeChellis.  "They improved so much from the beginning of the year until now.  We have a great nucleus coming back."

Navy, which entered the season as the 15th youngest team in the country in terms of average age of the roster, returns all five starters and loses just one senior in Austin Inge.