PRAISE JESUS: Corey and Tyler Returning to Team

OK Terrier fans, you can put away those razorblades, reclaim your homemade #13 jersey from the trash and take down "FIRE WOLFF" from your gchat away message:

Corey Lowe is BACK... for now.

"I never wanted to leave. I just had to get my things together," Lowe said. "There were a lot of things that accumulated."

In a meeting between the two yesterday afternoon, both agreed it would be best for Lowe to return to action Saturday.

"Talking to Corey [yesterday], he was in a much better place," Wolff said. "I think he's going to come back refreshed and have a better handle on dealing with some of the things he's had to deal with."

So it seems the two gentlemen had a powwow and decided it was in both of their best interests to put aside differences now and concentrate on winning some basketball games.

Now of course, this could all be just a show to make it look like everything's alright, while Corey may still harbor thoughts of getting out of dodge - I guess that will play itself out through the rest of the semester/year. Here's hoping that winning a few games can make everybody feel a little better about the situation. And you know who might be able to help a little with that?.....

..........

TYLER EFFING MORRIS, who is scheduled to start shooting again today for the first time since his injury. Wolff says they aim to have him back in time for the game against Yale on 12/19 -- less than 3 weeks away!!

Two best pieces of news I've heard all week.

We Aren't Marshall.

I was just about to write the same exact post that the High Roller did - "the Terriers are on TV, watch them get destroyed."

The game is on here in the mid-Atlantic region as well, for reasons unknown. I was all set to go to a bar and watch the game on DirecTV by myself, but when I found out it's on regular cable's MASN, I figured I could save the beer money if I was just going to watch a blow-out.

I'm not even going to discuss the absence of Corey Lowe.. *sigh* I just hope he's on the team when they get back to Boston.

So without Corey and Tyler, I call this one at 90-45. Maybe we can push it past 50 if Carlos has a decent shooting game.


Edited at 8:20 PM [Halftime Update]

Yeah, this one is nasty to watch. The team cannot survive with Matt Wolff acting as on of the primary ballhandlers (ball mis-handlers?)... It's 42-19 at the half.

Hmmm, positives.. let's see, let's see... Well, Carlos has a couple of 3's (even if they were desperation shot-clock heaves). And Johnson has played good man-to-man defense so far.

At this point, I'll be ecstatic to get 45 points.

The Terriers on TV

Forgive me for not doing a recap of our game against Marshall, but if you were in my shoes, you wouldn't want to re-live that travesty either. Moving on.

If you live in the great state of New York, you'll be lucky enough to turn to Sports Channel New York at 7:30 tonight to see the Terriers have their collective asses handed to them by Pittsburg.

Maybe it won't be so bad. The Panthers are only ranked 11th as of right now, and BU will be looking to rebound from an embarassing loss to Marshall. Marques Johnson seems to be settling into the point guard roll and...oh who am I kidding. Just watch them or listen in online if you can't watch.

No prediction this time. I just want us to keep it within 30.

Gross

The Terriers got off to a very slow start against the Huskies of Northeastern, turning the ball over roughly 10 times in the first 10 minutes, and while they picked up their game after that point, they never had the huge run necessary to take control of the game.

A few things:

*We have no inside presense. Scott Britain just doesn't seem ready to shoulder the weight of being our big man. Yet. There's no doubt he'll improve over the course of this season, and come tourney time, he'll be a big part of the puzzle.

*We need a point guard. Until Tyler Morris returns, if he ever does, we're going to be scoring very few points. Granted, we cut back after a sloppy first 10 minutes, and 13 total for the game is a great feat for the Terriers, but we quickly dug ourselves a hole that was too tough to climb out of.

*I hate losing to the Chubbies (and I'm sure the players do even more), because of their fans. It's not that the fans are jackasses, but they always seem to outnumber us at our home games. It's pathetic whenever that happens, and it's pathetic that I can hear "De-fense" cheers when we have the ball. Shouldn't happen.

*It's too early to worry. Conference play is still a long ways away, and until then, we've got plenty of games to work out the many problems that we seem to have. I feel that the pieces are there, we just need to find a way for them all to fit together.

Old Crosstown Rivals Come to Town (the better part of town)

I had the good fortune of spending the weekend in DC, where I listened to the St. Joe's game on the radio with Tall-boy. Later that night, another member of the BU Wolff pack informed us that the game was actually on TV. It made us angry, but I think that watching BU shoot 37% from the field and turn the ball over 20 times would have made us angrier.

Tonight, we take on former America East rival Northeastern, who left to join the powerhouse Colonial Conference. I don't know a bunch about the Chubbies this year, but I remember slinking out of Northeastern's gym last year hoping no one could tell I was a BU fan. It was that bad. Let's see if we can change things around a little bit tonight.

If you're unfortunate enough to have a class tomorrow and most of your friends have gone home for Thanksgiving already, swing by the roof and check out the action.

My prediction: BU 68-NU 66

Clip its wings

Even if BU loses to St. Joe's tonight, it can't be worse than last year - when we lost to the Hawks twice. Both teams are much improved, but forgive me for saying that St. Joe's is still way better. Again, with Tyler still out, the Hawks will be a tall order for the Terrier - if we're to have any chance, the low-post players are going to have to step up.

I wonder if they brought their retarded bird mascot with them on the trip to the Greek... last time they came, we had a joyous time heckling the shit out of it.

My sad prediction: 15 point loss

Half-time Update

Thank God for this break from Washington Post Radio's "unbaised" coverage of the game. Here's a few things from the first half:

*Great start by our shooters, and then we went ice cold. If we want to win this game, Carlos and Corey will have to catch on fire early in the second half, and stay that way.

*Everyone's getting into the game. Listening from home, I've heard almost every Terrier's name so far (excluding the players whose names I don't know).

*I'm pretty sure I heard Tall-boy yelling to Matt Wolff that he's playing good defense. He must have been shouting pretty loud to be heard from the top of the upper deck. Did we mention that he, and to a lesser extent the BU Alumni, got 80 Terriers fans to the game? If only we could do that for away games that are in the northeast region of our country.

*Not that this is anything new for us, but turnovers are killing us.

*Unless something has changed in the two years that I've been out of college, then I feel that the GW students aren't grasping the concept of the "airball" chant. As far as I can tell, and from Albany, I can't sense much of what's going on, it seems that they're chanting "airball" everytime BU has the ball. No specific player, but whenever we have the ball, that's what they've been chanting. Whatever gives your team the advantage I guess.

10 points at half-time? We've come back from worse, I believe.

Pregame Prediction

The BU-GW game is about to start in a couple minutes, and I just figured out how to stream the game from WashingtonPostRadio.com, so I'll throw down a quick prediction before things get under way. I like our odds a lot more than I did last year. As Tall-boy mentioned earlier, last year we started 4 green freshmen in their first college action against a very good GW team. Add one year of experience to that (minus one point guard/heart 'n soul) , and who knows what could happen?

BU 67-GW63


Again, if you're in Boston and want to listen, WTBU didn't work for me so click here.


Go Terriers!

Ain't no party like a DC party

Tonight may only be the second game, but it's the biggest game of the year for me. See, this is the only time the Terriers visit my adopted hometown of DC. Just like two years ago, myself and a group of other BU alumni will pre-game at a Foggy Bottom bar and head to the game. SO PUMPED.

The best part will be the chance to taunt these ridiculous-looking creatures again:



The only unfortunate side effect could be some domestic strife -- the ladyfriend is a diehard Colonial. But thankfully, we've decided that whoever wins the game, we'll never speak of it again..

Now, about the game:
Last year, when GW beat BU in shiny new Agganis Arena by 13, GW was a wise, experienced team-- and BU was starting 4 freshman in their first collegiate game ever. Since then, GW graduated a few very important seniors, including Carl Elliott who torched the Terriers for 25 points, and replaced them with Rob Diggs (which is a badass name) and Wynton Witherspoon AKA "SPOOOOOOON". And BU's 4 now-sophomores are a year older and leading a team expected to win their conference. As GW head coach Karl Hobbs (who once patrolled the BU sidelines as an assistant coach but now makes the hearts of GW's young ladies flutter), "Boston University isn't a team I want to play two years from now."

Well, here we are 1 year later. Is it possible that Karl was one year off?

If they made the bracket now, BU would be a #1 seed

Quick!! Everyone go check out the latest RPI standings!

Boston University is currently.... NUMBER 3 IN THE NATION!!

Of course, this is due to BU having won its only game over St. Bonaventure, and then St. Bonaventure winning its only other game against Binghamton. And yes, if we check the RPI tomorrow we will probably be nowhere near the top... but its nice to revel in the glory just for now.

Great Expectations

I meant to post this before the first game, but I wanted to give a sample of what people are saying about the Terriers entering the season:

America East Coaches Poll - #1 in America East

Athlon's Sports Yearbook - #1 in America East

Lindy's College Basketball Yearbook - #1 in America East

The Sporting News College Basketball Yearbook - #1 in America East

ESPN Bracketology - #1 in America East (and NCAA #16 seed)

So the mainstream media is swinging from BU's nuts. (I should note however that all of these predictions were made prior to the Tyler Morris injury, which changes everything). The lone holdout is Blue Ribbon Yearbook, which also happens to be the most respected in the college basketball world BY FAR. I, along with thousands of other college hoops die-hards, pre-ordered my copy this year only to find the Terriers ranked #4 in America East.

Their reasoning mostly cites the unproven front court, which is a fair criticism. But due to losses on all the other AE rosters, I side with the others who rank BU first. Blue Ribbon is so highly respected for a reason: they are very good. Here's hoping they are wrong this time.

Terriers take out St. Boner-Adventure

BU passed its first test since the injury to Tyler Morris, when it beat St. Bonaventure by 11 last Friday. Yes, I was ready to throw in the towel on the season after Tyler went down, but thanks to some help from a grief counselor and this win, I'm willing to admit that this group might have some fight in them.

After spending the first 10 minutes in a deficit thanks to some hot shooting by SBU, the Terriers took control and never had much trouble after that. This was a team effort, but the win had a lot to do with 3 guys:

Corey Lowe
You obviously can't look beyond his 28 points. He was cold to start the game, but Wolff apparently told him to keep shooting until he warmed up. Then he was unstoppable. And we NEEEEEEED him to keep doing that while Tyler is out. Fair or not, Corey needs to pick up most of the slack.

John Holland
"Who?" you're asking? Johnny Holland, baby - the next high-flying Terrier. Considering that I expected about zero from him coming in (probably because I knew nothing about him), his 12 points off the bench were HUGE. It wasn't so much his two 3-pointers, but his thunderous dunks that brought The Roof to its feet.

The next Tunji Awojobi? Hard to say... But he has been continuously compared to the emerging Vermont sophomore superstar, Marqus Blakely - who contributed this gem to the canon of college basketball dunks:



Matt Wolff
He's known for his sharp shooting, but it was his hounding defense and able passing that won him plaudits against the Bonnies. Five steals and seven assists ain't nothin to sneeze at.

Yeah, opposing fans are going to give Matt shit for being coach's son... but I'm sure being the coach's son is what made him so good on the fundamentals.

Matt has gotten big over the last 2 years. Now he's 6'6" and 215. And I bet he puts in more than 2 points next time he plays. He's going to be a big part of the puzzle this year.



So, good win on Friday - first time in 6 years to open the season with a win.

Tyler Morris Out Indefinitely; BU Begins Fan Suicide Watch

That repeating thud you are hearing from the nation's capital area is the sound of my head slamming against a wall.

Tyler Morris won't set foot on the court for a while, thanks to a stress fracture to his leg he sustained in practice. A report in the Freep says Tyler hopes to be back for the start of the in-conference games, but I've heard that the injury is quite serious and he may miss even more time - maybe even the whole year, who knows...

What does this mean for the Terriers, who were just picked first in the AE by everyone from ESPN Bracketology to Good Housekeeping magazine?

Well, it means our second-leading scorer, 2007 AE Rookie of the Year, 2008 AE Preseason First Team, starting point guard, and overall heart-and-soul leader of this team will be doing his leading from the sideline.

It means Boston University is no longer the favorite to win the America East.

It means Corey Lowe and Marques Johnson (if he's even still around) are going to step up bigtime in the scoring and ball-handling departments.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to stick my head in this oven...

Taiwanese Terriers

I wasn't over in Taiwan this summer with the team to write about it, so I'll let these people write about it. You should read the whole articles, but here are some snippets.

First a general overview article from SI on Campus:

The trip provided an opportunity for a Terrier squad with just two returning seniors to share the experience of a lifetime, as well as to entertain adoring international fans. The tournament included BU, the University of British Columbia, Northeastern University (China), Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and the United Vietnamese National Universities.

"They know what Division I college basketball is. We were like celebrities, but it was fun," said sophomore Corey Lowe.

"It was rock-star status," Morris said. "It was absolutely ridiculous. It was out of control."

Second, a Freep article which had some funny stuff:

Even with the language barriers, America East Rookie of the Year Tyler Morris said that on Kainan's camus, the Terriers were treated like rock stars, especially Ibrahim Konate, the 6-foot-8 forward from Bamako, Mali.

"Ib was the man over there. They thought he was like some sort of god resurrected in Taiwan," Morris said. "They just loved him. I thought it was the funniest thing ever. We were all like, 'You go back to reality in a couple days, you better soak this up.'"

[...]

Wolff couldn't let go of his graduating seniors, Omari Peterkin and Brian Macon, without bringing them on the trip as well and even letting them coach the game against Hochiminh City Technical Education University (Vietnam) - a game that featured a moment which made even Wolff do a double take.

"I just said to them before the game, 'We don't want to embarrass them,'" Wolff said. "So Corey ended up on breakaway and went up and dunked it hard. And the kid from Vietnam is giving him skin as he's running back and the ref is trying to hug him. You're sitting down on the endline and you're thinking, 'Did I just see that right?'"

"I threw him an alley-oop and he dunked it ridiculously hard," Morris added. "I don't even know, he caught it and just slammed it home and the ref was just going berserk. He had never seen anything like it."

That is some hilarious shit. And finally, I hope Scott Brittain will forgive me for stealing this photo of Carlos Strong from Facebook, but it is badass.