The Boston University Terriers were one game from glory in March, and they haven’t forgotten it. Joe Jones’s team ripped through the 2026 Patriot League tournament — surviving a buzzer-beater at Navy in the semifinals behind the emergence of Chance Gladden as a clutch March performer — before falling to Lehigh in the championship game on March 11. It was the closest BU has come to the NCAA tournament in the Jones era. The 2026-27 Terriers return with a chip on their shoulder, a preseason all-league star coming back from injury, and a league that has them picked to contend.
Jones is the constant. Now entering his 16th season on Commonwealth Avenue, he’s the dean of Patriot League coaches — a defensive-minded builder who took over in 2011 after Patrick Chambers’ departure and has kept BU relevant in one of the nation’s toughest academic conferences ever since. His teams defend, they grind, and they play with the kind of edge you’d expect from a program that shares a city with the Celtics. Case Gym, the Terriers’ cozy on-campus home, gets loud when the team is good — and Jones has made sure it’s good more often than not.
The headline returner is senior Kyrone Alexander, and his story is the season’s emotional core. The 6-foot-5 guard from Bridgetown, Barbados was named to the 2026-27 Preseason All-Patriot League Team on October 1 — his second straight year earning preseason honors — after missing almost all of 2025-26 with an injury suffered in the season opener. In 2024-25, Alexander was a Second Team All-Patriot League pick, averaging 12.9 points and 5.1 rebounds while ranking among the league’s top 20 in scoring, rebounding and steals in conference play. A healthy Alexander changes everything for this team: he’s a two-way wing who can take over games on both ends.
He won’t be alone. Junior Azmar Abdullah (8.3 points per game) and sophomore Sam Hughes (9.0 ppg) are back from the tournament run, along with sophomore Donte Tisinger Jr. (6.4 ppg) and the aforementioned Gladden, whose March breakout suggests a bigger role. Jones has also brought in seven newcomers, headlined by transfers with real pedigree: 6-foot-10 Michelangelo Oberti from Penn, guard Alex Zakheim from Brandeis, Peter Carr from Virginia Tech and 6-foot-11 Quinn Nielsen from The Citadel — plus a freshman class featuring Jaxson Terry, Joost Dalgaard, Darnell Lloyd IV, Jelani Easter and EJ Vernon. It’s a blend of experience and upside, built for a league where depth wins in February.
The Patriot League’s coaches see it too. In the preseason poll, the Terriers were picked third — tied with Colgate at 61 points — behind American (81 points, nine first-place votes) and defending tournament champion Lehigh (72 points, one first-place vote). Navy, Bucknell, Lafayette, Holy Cross, Loyola Maryland and Army round out the poll. It’s a respectful slot for a team that was one win from the title, and it sets up a season-long chase: catch American, avenge Lehigh, and be playing its best basketball when the league tournament — the only path to the NCAAs — arrives in March.
BU’s history says the breakthrough is possible. The Terriers have been to the NCAA tournament five times — 1988, 1990, 1997, 2002 and 2011 — and they won the Patriot League tournament in 2020, the COVID year when no national tournament was played. The program has produced NBA talent in John Holland and a steady stream of all-league performers. What it hasn’t had under Jones is the one shining March that turns a good tenure into a legendary one. The 2026 run to the final was the closest call yet.
There’s also the matter of unfinished business with the rest of the league. The Terriers’ road to a title runs through the programs picked ahead of them — and through the memories of last March, when they were 40 minutes from cutting down nets. Jones has built his entire tenure on the idea that defense and toughness travel. In a one-bid league, that’s not a philosophy. It’s a survival strategy.
The season opens November 2 against Northeastern at Case Gym — a city rivalry game that always matters — and from there it’s the familiar Patriot League grind: the road trips to West Point and Annapolis, the chess matches with Colgate and Bucknell, the target on American’s back. For Boston University, the formula is simple and brutal: defend like Jones teams always defend, get Alexander back to his all-league level, let the newcomers grow up fast, and be the team nobody wants to see in March. They were one game away last year. This year, they’re coming for the whole thing.