The New Blood

Newcomers to this blog might wonder why we never write about recruiting. Yes it's interesting to speculate about blue-chippahs who could turn BU into the next George Mason, before they are swept away by the UConns and the Umasses and the St. Joe'ses. But so far, not once have we mentioned any high schoolers that Coach Wolff and his staff have targeted for Terrierization.

You might be asking: why not?

Well, the answer is: we don't know how. The sports writers for the Herald and the Globe couldn't give two poops about who BU was actively courting, like their counterparts in Binghamton and Albany and Burlington do. We don't have contacts in Wolff's coaching staff that might be willing to leak a tasty morsel about the next Terrier sensation (although once, I saw the team having lunch with a recruit at the GSU, and I asked Billy Collins about it and he said "the kid's a baller" -- that kid turned out to be Etienne Brower). I wouldn't know where to start when looking at the various AAU and high school teams and camps. And I'm too cheap to subscribe to any of the various recruiting websites.

So around here, we just wait until the official announcement from BU or someone tells us on a message board. Here's our take:


1) Will Creekmore, 6'9"/245
Will seems to be the crown jewel of Coach Wolff's 2007 recruiting class. From everything I can find through my limited internet searching skills, the kid seems to be money. Will is our very own Bryant "Big Country" Reeves, a big good ol' boy hailing from Tulsa. You can read all his stats at the BU roster page, but what stands out is the REBOUNDING... averaging 15 boards his junior year and 17 his senior year. With Vermont's Chris Holm graduating, this guy has a chance to be the premier rebounder in the AE for the next 4 years. And he'll be able to jump into the lineup immediately with the Big O's departure.

Check out this video I dug up, complete with soundtrack that would make any 70's-era porno proud:


When I saw that video, I immediately thought of Ryan Butt. So you can imagine my glee when, in a phone convo with Wolff, the Coach referred to Will as "very similar to Ryan Butt, the way he uses his body and can step out to take three's."

And here's a headline I hope we'll be seeing in the Freep a lot over the next couple years.

2) Johnny Holland, 6'5"/190
The other BU recruits are admittedly a little more difficult to find on the ol' internets. I did happen to find out that John a.k.a. "Johnny" Holland's dad played ball at Iona, which will be a neat little factoid to break out if BU happens to play Iona in the next 4 years.

We all know how Wolff loves him some NYC ballerz, and Johnny is pure NYC. Wolff told me that he's a "pure athlete," and the BU site says he's high-energy and can provide size on the wing. All this tells me that he might need a little work in the skills refinement area. Those are all the same things we heard about Sherrod Smith, who wasn't able to contribute much right away last year.

But this guy's stats do speak for themselves, and he put them up in a tough NY high school league.

3) Matt Killen, 6'10"/215
They always say you can't teach height, which is true - but you've got to be able to teach that height some other skills. Matt seems like a project, but that's not a bad thing - hey, they said Roy Hibbert was going to be a project! As long as he doesn't turn into the next Matt Czaplinski...

Wolff says Matt's really athletic, but needs to put a lot more weight on his frame. And if you think about the fact that he's got 5 inches on MATT WOLFF yet weighs the same 215 lbs... yeah I'd say he could stand to has a few cheezburgers.

March Madness: 17 Days and Counting

A couple days ago, I got an invitation in my Facebook account to the BU basketball Midnight Madness, which has got me excited for 2 reasons:

For the first time since I defeated BU women's coach Margaret McKeon in a 3-point shooting contest, and for the first time since Matt Turner hurt himself during the slam-dunk contest, Coach Wolff is allowing Midnight Madness to actually happen at BU. This is fantastic news. I'll discuss the Dean of Students office's new efforts to increase student interest in the hoops program, but I have a suspicion that this is their doing.

After a long basketball-less summer, it means BU basketball season is mere weeks away!!

So this is as good a time as any to start blogging about BU hoops for the season. Thanks a million to the High Roller, who wrote the mid-summer recap a couple months ago, touching on several developments from the end of the tournament and early summer. He has been bugging me to blog about some other stuff for a while (including a candid convo with Coach Wolff back in July).

There's tons of stuff to dissect: new frosh, new schedule, new website, new "expert" predictions, new marketing strategy - and we'll do all of that over the next couple weeks, as time permits (although newly unemployed High Roller doesn't have much of an excuse). So stay tuned.

In the meantime, if you're a student head to the March Madness facebook event page and join the [currently] 586 other fans who plan on being there. (Fun side note: Among those in the "Not attending" column, you'll find former Terrier Corey Hassan... guess the Assassin can't bear to witness what he's missing out on this year...)