The men’s basketball team on Tuesday fell one game short of a hat trick before beginning a break from competition during final exams.

Yale (3-6) dropped a game to Boston University (3-6), 76-67, to end a brief two-game winning streak yesterday after knocking out Vermont, 86-76, on Saturday and recording a win over Fairfield last week. The match between the Terriers and the Bulldogs was the first since 1936.

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Boston’s Corey Lowe beat the Elis’ perimeter defense to put up a career-high 35 points and seal the win for the Terriers. His showing was the second 30-plus individual game the Bulldogs have seen in the last two games. Vermont guard Mike Trimboli threw up 32 points in the Catamounts’ defeat this weekend.

“[Lowe] was the one that did it, and I don’t think we respected him enough,” head coach James Jones said. “We had our hands down most of the time. We didn’t do much to stop him.”

The Terriers’ perimeter play, the hallmark of their game, beat the Eli backcourt defense to score 51 points and knock the home team out of the running.

But the score was not an indicator of the Bulldogs’ strong effort in defending BU’s other three men and in playing their own game.

After scoring a mere 11 at Fairfield, captain and guard Eric Flato ’08 made his mark against Vermont with a squad-leading 20 points and again last night, when he notched 15 points. The Yale bench contributed 23 points, as guard Alex Zampier ’10 led the charge with eight.

“I’ve been shooting kind of well,” Zampier said. “I’m just playing my role and trying to do what the team needs me to do.”

Forward Jordan Gibson ’10 ran the show for the last four minutes of the contest, putting up seven points in his limited playing time. But points off the bench and solid numbers from the starters were not enough to overcome the Terriers and the Elis’ own problems.

Flato said during the break the squad needs to focus on containing penetration, something the Elis did not do yesterday and which allowed BU’s star players to win the game — Lowe alone sunk seven of 13 attempted three-pointers. But Jones’ take is that the Bulldogs need to take advantage of scoring chances that present themselves on the court.

“We had opportunities that we did not convert,” he said. “We didn’t handle the psyche of the game really well. It’s disappointing that we didn’t come out and play better tonight. We missed an opportunity playing at home to go into the break with three wins.”

The Elis had a respectable night from the field, shooting 51.1 percent, but the 12 missed shots from beyond the arc may have cost them the game. The Bulldogs’ sloppy night against BU, which featured 21 turnovers, cost them a victory before heading into winter break and a match against No. 3 Kansas in Lawrence, Kan. on Dec. 29.

“A couple of the turnovers were careless,” Flato — who was responsible for eight turnovers — said. “The ball just slipped out of my hand. With the exception of some spots in this game, we’ve been playing pretty well the past two, three games. [The break] will give us a chance to reflect.”