BU is right on target against Northeastern

When the tale is retold, the 136th meeting between the Boston University and Northeastern men's basketball teams should be framed as a shoot-em-up Western. Both teams showed up at Matthews Arena for last night's nonconference matchup brandishing pistoleros of redoubtable 3-point marksmanship.

Matt Janning, NU's baby-faced assassin, was quick with the trigger in scoring a team-high 22 points on 10-for-17 shooting.

But the Colonial Athletic Association Player of the Week was outdueled, if not outnumbered, by BU's sharpshooting duo of junior guard Corey Lowe and freshman forward Jake O'Brien. Corey and the Kid combined for 48 points on 17-for-24 shooting, including 9 of 15 from the 3-point arc, to lead the Terriers to an 83-75 victory before a crowd of 2,500.

"First of all, this was a hell of a basketball game," said BU coach Dennis Wolff, who got a game-high 27 points from Lowe, the former Newton North standout, and a career-high 21 from O'Brien, the former BC High standout from Weymouth. "We're happy and fortunate to come out on top.

"We've got a lot of respect for their team. There were a lot of good players making good plays and, for us, both of these guys played about as well as they've played. Corey, having been here for a while, and Jake, his performance for a freshman was fabulous."

The preseason favorites in America East, the Terriers (3-1) have rebounded from a 63-58 overtime loss to George Washington in their Nov. 14 opener to win three straight. They did it last night by hitting 15 of 31 from the arc vs. the Huskies (3-2).

"We ran into a team tonight that just shot lights-out," said NU coach Bill Coen, who didn't lament the 11 3-point attempts his team missed (6 of 17) as much as he did the 11 foul shots it failed on (15 of 26). "Both teams had mismatches, both ways. We had an advantage inside and they had the advantage on the perimeter, and I think they got the game going their way and were able to shoot a tremendous percentage from [3-point range].

"I think, ultimately, between that and our missed free throws, that was the tale of the basketball game."

Lowe did much of his damage in the first half by scoring 23 of his team's first 30 points, including 9 in a row, to help the Terriers build a 30-26 lead with 4:32 left before intermission. Janning, who had 14 first-half points, gave NU a 40-39 halftime lead when he hit a pretty baseline fade that beat the buzzer.

"It just kind of came with the flow," Lowe said. "In the beginning, I just started hitting shots and they started rushing at me and I started dribbling and then Jake would just float out to the 3-point line and the bigs didn't go out with him, so he just had some wide-open shots."

O'Brien was happy to oblige, doing much of his damage in the second half when he scored 14 of his 21.

The teams opened the second half by swapping baskets and the lead, until O'Brien gave the Terriers the lead for good when he knocked down a trey to make it 45-43 and followed with a perimeter jumper to make it 47-43.

Manny Adako's dunk cut it to 47-45, but the Terriers answered with a 12-4 run that gave them their first double-digit lead, 59-49, with 13:05 to go.

Janning led an 8-3 outburst by scoring 6 to pull NU within 5 at 62-57, but O'Brien helped BU put the game under wraps with a back-breaking trey that made it 72-58 with 4:49 to go.

"This is a good nonconference win, but these guys are interested in accomplishing a lot more than beating a crosstown rival," Wolff said. "So we still have a lot of basketball to be played. But if we can play as well offensively as we played for most of this game, we will have a chance to win some other games."

Michael Vega can be reached at vega@globe.com