:: Can You Believe We've Been Doing This Shit for Six Years Now? ::
Friday, February 29, 2008
How 'Bout™ BU...again!
While I'm trying to put last night's Hartford game back into perspective and remind myself that it's ONLY a regular season game and it will mean nothing once the tournament starts, Kyle at Mid-Majority has done that nicely with a shout out in today's Boubacar:
And How 'Bout™ Boston University? While other America East teams are jockeying for position and generally pushing each other around, the Terriers (12-15, 8-6) are slowly creeping up on the America East charts. Last night, they moved into a three-way tie for second by blasting Hartford behind John Holland's 38 points. After digging themselves a 2-5 hole to start league play (attributable in part to Tyler Morris' foot injury and recovery), BU is back! Seven wins in eight games, and the loss was a tight three-point drop at regular season champs UMBC.
It's nice to get some love after winning 8 of 9 games - and Kyle can always be counted on for that. Remember, this is our second "How 'Bout™" in 16 days!
Holland. That's all I wanted to say, just Holland.
Tall-boy already said everything that needed to be said, but I just have to throw my two cents in after BU played their best game of the season.
Forced to listen to it online, it pained me every time the crowd went wild after a John Holland dunk or a Carlos Strong three that I could be there in person to witness the 97-66 thrashing of #2 Hartford.
Boy oh boy.
It must have been electric in the roof as Holland clinched the Rookie of the Year award (I'm wary of jinxing him, but if he doesn't get it after that performance, then that is just a felony) with his 38 points and 11 rebounds. He absolutely lit it up. Completely overshadowed Corey Lowe's 21 points, which I feel I'm starting to take for granted since it happens almost every game. Carlos looked like himself again with 16 points. Scott Brittain got 14 (at home!). Matt Wolff had 11 boards and 7 assists. Not shabby.
Strangely, Tyler Morris didn't play. Is he hurt? Is he resting? Does he have the flu? Who knows, but that meant Marques Johnson had to step up big and run the point, and it looks as though he did a fantastic job.
If this isn't enough, Vermont lost tonight, bringing us one step closer to the coveted second seed in next weeks tournament. Christ, is it only a week away??
We've got a real test Sunday when we head to Albany. If we can do to them a fraction of what we did to Hartford, there's good reason to be optimistic about the tourney, and for every other team in the conference to be scared.
WOW. There is domination, and then there is BU vs. Hartford.
Statement #1: JOHN HOLLAND I dare anyone who watched, listened to, or even read about this game to deny John Holland the Rookie of the Year Award. If there was even a debate between Holland and Morgan Sabia, who put up a limp 5 points, it's now over.
38 points, 11 rebounds - those are Marqus Blakely numbers.
Most points scored by any America East player this year.
Statement #2: BOSTON UNIVERSITY When was the last time BU put up 97 points? Fourteen years ago, that's when. Everybody contributed, four guys in double figs,
This team was in 8th place a few weeks ago - now it'll play for sole possession of second place on Sunday. Screw UMBC, this is the hottest team coming into the tournament. They are peaking at the exact right time.
Look out, America East. It's going to take a lot to stop this train.
As this America East conference season winds down, one team (UMBC) has distinguished itself as the clear leader, and three teams (UNH, Maine, Stony Brook) have distinguished themselves as trailing the pack. What remains in the middle is a muddled mess of teams fighting it out for the 2-6 seeds.
A quick look to the right sidebar reveals standings that look like this (as of 2/26):
2. Hartford (9-5) 3. Boston University (8-6) 4. Albany (8-6) 5. Binghamton (8-6) 6. Vermont (8-6)
The big prize for any of these teams is the #2 spot. Landing in this position means a date with the significantly less scary UNH, and more importantly avoids and of the other 2-6 teams until the Semi-Finals. For BU, the coveted #2 spot is still within reach, but they need some help.
BU will not sweep any of the teams in the top 6, so winning a tie-breaker is unlikely (and even if it weren't, who the hell knows what tie-breakers the AE has set up). So winning the spot outright is BU's best chance. Here's how it could happen (only meaningful games are listed):
Wed, Feb 27 Alb at Bing
Thu, Feb 28 Hart at BU UVM at UNH
Sat, Mar 1 Bing at SBU
Sun, Mar 2 BU at Alb Maine at UVM UMBC at Hart
None of that seems terribly unreasonable - and it would only require one win by UNH/Maine/Stony Brook (either UNH or Maine beating Vermont... and UNH always plays Vermont tough at home). Those game results would create this final standing:
2. Boston University (10-6) 3. Hartford (9-7) 4. Albany (9-7) 5. Binghamton (9-7) 6. Vermont (9-7)
Not bad. We can't control what any of those other teams do, but it all starts with takin' care of bidness ourselves, and that means putting a whuppin on UHa tomorrow night.
As part of our effort to add 32 pieces of flair to our humble weblog, I had big plans for the big BU vs. UMBC matchup back on February 17th. Loyal readers might remember that we never actually wrote anything about that game, despite the fact that it was actually a game that I could go and see in person, AND it was on TV, AND it was a huge game for BU.
So I went to the game, and was able to get B-Wags to come with me, and I even Tivo'd it to try and put video highlights up. But then I dropped the ball. I kept trying to figure out how to transfer Tivo to the computer, cut the video into clips, successfully put them on to YouTube... and nothing ever got written about the game.
This is a familiar pattern for those who have looked forward to reading about our experiences at the America East tournament the last two years. There is so much to write about and we always have big plans for it, but there is almost TOO much to write about and anything less than a full report seems lame. Also, we are always too drunk for the whole time. So we end up not writing anything while we're there, despite the pure gold that we're witnessing, and by the time we get around to it, nobody really cares anymore since the season is over.
Well that's going to change right now. The following four videos are some of the highlights of this amazing game, a game that I called one of the best AE games I have witnessed in person. Everyone was making shots for both teams, tons of ties and lead changes, and the lead never went above 4 points for almost the entire game... UMBC just came out a little ahead at the end of 40 minutes. (And by the way, we hope to put up more videos, so you can subscribe to our YouTube channel if you wish)
Now, B-Wags was at last year's AE tourney, but he had never seen John HOLLA in person (and I'm permanently borrowing that phrase from the Hot Dog). I promised B-Wags a mammoth dunk from Johnny (much like I had promised Burger Man against Maine), and late in the second half, Johnny delivered:
The next highlight came near the very end of the game, just over a minute to go, BU down by 3. Corey decided to take matters into his own hands:
Finally, these are the "un-highlights" of the game. These are the last two possessions for BU, both under a minute left and trailing by a possession. Poor Scott Brittain - undeniably having a great season, but this was not his game...sigh:
So this year, the "Bracketbuster" was less about Brackets and more like a Bust for BU - playing 6-19 St. Peter's is not the prize that we would like to have for interrupting the stretch run of our conference season. Still, today's 67-64 win was good to show just how far we have come as a team.
BU shot much worse than the PeaCOCKS (37.8% versus 48.0%), yet still came away with the victory because they took care of the ball and shared with others (only 8 turnovers all game, and 18 assists). That wouldn't have happened during the normal non-conference season. They also showed grit by coming from behind to take the win. They were down by 3 with just over a minute remaining, but turned that into a 3-point victory thanks to a wide open layup by Matt Wolff (who has really proved his worth lately) with 13 seconds left and clutch free throws by Johnny Holland.
**Fun Fact**: This is the first victory in any Bracketbuster or Bracketbuster-affiliated game for an America East team! Go us!
Congrats are in order for Corey Lowe - he shot 14 3-pointers, but the 6 that went in were enough for him to break the BU single season record for made 3-pointers (the record was 79, he now has 83). For a guy who missed 5 whole games due to injuries and his little vacation earlier this year, and still has at least 3 games to go, that is damn impressive.
Huge game next Thursday against Hartford - a chance to move into a tie for second place... and it's at our place. Time to bring it, Terrier fans.
You heard it correctly, we can not, must not lose this "BracketBuster" game. Our chance of making the NCAA tournament hinges on this game. Lose, and that's it. Season's over. Wrap it up.
And St. Peter's has just as much to play for, since a BU win will bust their proverbial bracket. Yes, we are the only roadblock between this 6-20 MAAC team and the NCAA tournament in March.
This game will be a real test of our team's ability to perform under pressure, because I'm sure they are fully aware of what is at stake.
And if we lose, so what? There's always the America East tournament.
Prediction: BU wins it 74-62 and a double-double from John Holland.
It's good to know that your blog has hit the mainstream.
Once in a while the blog will tell us how people found our beloved BU hoops blog, whether by a link from another website or from a search engine or something like that. And when it's from a search engine like google, it tells us what people were searching for when they found us.
So imagine the surprise of an unnamed person from Seattle, WA (name withheld for privacy reasons) when they found our blog as the second listing when he/she searched for bad smell during doggy style. I don't know what exactly this person thought they would find, but I can say with much certainty that it isn't on our BU hoops blog.
(Don't say I didn't warn you about the other search results that come up)
Let me tell you about Burger Man. Burger Man is a big-time BU fan, but you might say his fan-dom of the men's hoop team has lapsed a bit. He still follows the team from afar and is always up for watching a game, but maybe not as up to date on the intracacies of the team as if, say, he read this blog every day.
But I won't hold that against Burger Man.
Burger Man earned his stripes as a BU basketball fan, showing such spirit during college that he sometimes showed up to games looking like this: I was delighted when Burger Man elected to join me at Porter's for the BU vs. Maine game on Wednesday (the bartender doesn't even hesitate anymore - he sees my BU shirt and immediately tunes the DirecTV to NESN). The last game Burger Man watched with me was really depressing, so he had been a little gunshy about bringing more bad luck to the Terriers.
"But they're a whole different team now than when you saw them shit the bed against Albany!" I told Burger Man. "And wait till you see this John Holland kid."
"Who?"
Clearly, something needed to be done about this. I told Burger Man that Johnny Holland was going to put on a show for him against Maine. Annnnnnnnnnnnd, he did.
Within minutes, John-boy was dropping effortlessly 3-pointers and frustrating the Maine ball-handlers at the top of the zone defense. BY FAR, the most ridiculous stretch came near the middle of the 1st half. BU stole the ball on 4 straight Maine possessions, each time leading to a fast break - first for a Marques Johnson lay-up, then a missed 3-pointer, then a Carlos Strong dunk... and THEN what we were all waiting for: Johnny gets a steal and takes it the length of the floor for a jaw-dropping, thunderous dunk. I loved that 2 minutes of my life.
BU annihilated Maine - it wasn't even as close as the final score of 73-54. The outcome was never, ever in doubt. Burger Man and I were hoping to either double Maine's score OR stay ahead by 30... we did neither, but it didn't matter. John Holland and Co. put on a show for us, and we were thankful.
John Holland has won his third straight Rookie of the Week award, thanks in part to his electrifying performance in our win over Binghamton (25 points).
Will this one finally put him in the lead for consideration for the America East Rookie of the Year?
Maybe he should do it again just to be sure. We've got Maine on Wednesday, and St. Peters on Saturday. Both are teams that he can do some serious damage to.
Every year at the America East tournament, I kind of feel bad for UMBC. They are always the furthest from home and have among the least fans in attendance. They're pretty new to the conference, so nobody really respects them, and in their short tenure here they haven't had much success.
So I usually lightly root for them, just because I'd rather see them win than Binghamton or Albany, etc. Plus their pep band is sick, and their dance team was really hot too. Last year was good, since they broke through to the semifinals but lost to Vermont. Coming in as the underdogs, I would have liked to see them go even further.
Well, no more.
This year's UMBC Retrievers came out of nowhere to dominate the conference. They are kicking serious ass now, so they are no longer the lovable loser underdogs. What sucks about this UMBC team is that they have 2 transfers who are there for just 1 year - I think that's a pretty cheap way to achieve success. This year at the tournament, I will not root for UMBC.
I reserve the right to root for their dance team though.
Several weeks ago, UMBC made us look like chumps on our own floor ("Men against boys" is how Coach Wolff described it) in a 22 point thrashing. The High Roller responded to that loss with a blog post titled "OK, We Suck" and a lot of people agreed in the comments. Times were bad in Terrier Nation. But that was the old BU. These Terriers show up in Catonsville MD today as winners of 5 straight and legitimate contenders after taking care of Vermont on their own floor - can they do the same to UMBC?
The wins against UNH, Maine and Stony Brook were nice to build a little confidence. The destruction of Binghamton was a great game that proved we were ready to compete with anybody in the conference.
But this one just felt GOOD.
As a veteran of the Terrier-Catmounter Wars of 2002-04, watching them make the conference finals these past 3 years (and WINNING it the 2 years before that) has been torture. Ever since we made the tourney in 2002, they just always seem to be ever-so-slightly better than us.
That may still be true, and last night's 59-58 win is by no means equal to a conference championship, but it's really nice to walk into their house, out-play them for 40 minutes and prove that we still got some fight in us, even in what we thought was a down year.
The first half ended with a 4-point BU lead, and the story was defense. It seemed like BU stole the ball every other possession and pushed it up for a fast break. That's one thing I LOVE about this team... they're not afraid to run and they do it well.
Second half - remember how after the Binghamton game I wrote about the stepping on the throats thing? Yeah, not so much. BU pushed it out to a 14-point lead, which was great, but let Vermont claw back into it, culminating in the thrilling conclusion: what else, but Mike Trimboli missing a shot at the buzzer.
The Freep says it's BU's first one-point win since 2003. Winning this one, our fifth straight, against UVM made it that much sweeter.
We haven't deserved it all year, but thanks to last night's destruction of SUNY-B the Terriers finally got some love from the Mid-Majority. From today's "Boubacar":
How 'Bout™ the mighty Terriers of Boston University? After a few key injuries, they barely survived nonconference with a 3-9 start, then lost five of their first seven America East games. But they're back, baby... four straight wins have brought them above .500 in the league, including a convincing 79-53 drubbing of ring-a-ding Binghamton. Highly tooted (and touted) 6-5 freshman John Holland broke through with a 25-point performance, his first really outstanding game in his collegiate career.
I can't recommend his site highly enough, despite Kyle's pre-season choice of Binghamton to win the AE. And he always manages to take in a few BU games every year.
Last night was amazing. I can't really put it any better than the High Roller did already. Learning to step on the throat of an opponent is something this team needs to do when it gets a lead, and they did that last night. And they had fun doing it.
That was all I could think for about an hour and a half after we completed a 79-53 shellacking of SUNY Binghamton on Tuesday night. Everything seemed to click. And I mean everything. A line-up that was without Carlos Strong still managed to put on one of our best offensive, and defensive, games of the year.
John Holland is improving with every game, as the reigning Rookie of the Week scored 25 points, adding 4 rebounds and 4 steals. When Scott Brittain got his 4th foul at the start of the second half, Max Gotzler stepped up in a huge way, netting 13 and grabbing 6 rebounds. Vlad ate up some serious minutes too.
Corey got himself 13 points, and I think he's really starting to appreciate that he doesn't have to carry so much of the workload, at least in the last few games. And Matt Wolff wasn't to shabby either. He's been quiet all year, but he continues to give us over 30 minutes nearly every game, and today he score 12 points as well. I haven't heard it yet, but I'll say it's pretty great to finally have him healthy again.
This was a win we needed. It shows that we can take on some of the better teams in our league. The guys on The Zone said it pretty well before the game: BU was 5-0 against teams below them in the conference, and 0-5 against teams above them in the conference. Let's ride this momentum into Thursday's game against a Vermont team that looked pretty sloppy against Albany on Monday.
And I don't like taking joy in the misery of other teams, but I'll make an exception since it's SUNY Binghamton, and one of their fans left this one our blog after they beat us earlier in the year:
"At least you have a good amount of time to wipe your tears before we kick your ass on your own turf."
Well as it turned out, we kicked their ass for our fourth straight win, not to mention their fourth straight loss, and slipped past them in the standings to fifth place, with a record of 6-5, our first time over .500 in conference this year.
I also discovered on BU's recap that this is our longest winning streak since the 04-05 season, which just blows my mind.
Just heard on the radio that Carlos Strong is sitting out tonight. Knee problem. He could use the rest since his shot has seemingly been off in recent weeks.
How will it affect tonights game? Obviously this sucks because the SUNY defense can focus more on Corey.
Yeah, it's big. If we can manage a win tonight, that would put us ahead of Binghamton in the America East standings. It's too early for me to try to make any guesses on seeding for the tournament, but I think we're safe enough to not have to play the Friday night play-in game. But with UNH and Maine close behind us, who knows?
Let's hope we can get enough fans at the game to give us a real homecourt advantage. Hopefully the Sports Marketing Department is doing their part and won't drop the ball, unlike the Vermont game. Granted, there were a decent number of kids there, but in our section behind one of the hoops, it seemed more like 5 rows of people waiting for a bus instead of watching a basketball game.
Getting people there is only half the battle, and almost pointless unless you get people into the game. Sure, they provide BU towels to wave and pompoms for whatever, but with five minutes left in the game, they were still sitting in a box, instead of being waved by fans. My memory is fuzzy, but aparently I ran around handing out all that shit try to get the fans into down the home stretch. I guess it was fun, and I was drunk so I didn't care about acting like a retard, but my point is they should have someone doing that, before the game gets going.
Anywayyyyy, after that little rant I forgot what the point of this post was. Maybe there is no point. If you're in Boston, go to the game. Unless you are a SUNY fan. If you can't make it, listen to it here.
Faced with a chance for their first 3-game winning streak of the year, BU brought the hammer down on Stony Brook. Correction, make that Johnny Holland brought the hammer down on Stony Brook.
Kid turned in one of BU's best overall performances of the year last Saturday: 15 points, 14 boards... and oh yeah, no turnovers. Holland's performance in the game was overshadowed only by the fact that Matt Wolff got into a fight.
John Holland was rewarded for his effort with his second straight AE Rookie of the Week award and third overall (Matt Wolff, we can only assume, was rewarded for his effort with a cookie).
I have been pushing Johnny's candidacy for Rookie of the Year over at the AE message board, where most folks seem to think it's a two-horse race between UNH's Alvin Abreu and Hartford's Morgan Sabia. But let's look at the stats for conference games (which is when Holland started taking minutes from Wolff):
Holland 12.3 ppg 7.3 rpg 12/18 a/to
Sabia 12.3 ppg 3.6 rpg 10/22 a/to
Abreu 12.2 ppg 4.2 rpg 21/24 a/to
If you ask me, it's a close contest but Holland wins it. Sabia is the conference's 3-point field goal percentage leader, but then why isn't that translating into more points - and for such a tall guy that's quite a low RPG. Abreu's high numbers come from playing almost all of his team's minutes, since they have nowhere else to turn.
If BU hopes to go to the Big Dance this year, I hope they can come up with some new moves.
So that scores about a 9.8 on the Uncomfortable Scale and about a 1,000,000 on the Awesome Scale. Earlier this year I quoted from an SI On Campus article about the Terriers' summer vacay in Taiwan. The relevant section:
Representing the United States in the annual Kainan University Tournament in Taiwan, the Boston University men's basketball team put on a show for an international crowd, both on and off the court.
Before winning the tournament, the team showed off its skills by dancing to a mix of the Cha Cha Slide, Right Said Fred's I'm Too Sexy, and Lloyd's Get it Shawty. "There was a talent show where each team went up and did a skit in front of about 500 students," said coach Dennis Wolff. "From our team standpoint it was a very good bonding experience."
"We had nothing for the show and only a few of us wanted to do it at first," said redshirt sophomore Tyler Morris. "But then we decided to go outside and practice it and made up this little dance skit in 10 minutes. The rest is history.
History indeed. Bob Saget's AFHV wouldn't touch this shit. But give 'em credit for gettin up and trying. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for your Dancing Terriers.
Today we play against one of the 3 teams we can beat, the mighty Seawolves of Stony Brook.
BU had a week off to prepare for this game, but you have to wonder if any minds wandered to the Binghamton and Vermont games looming on Tuesday and Thursday. I kind of wish we had a whole week to prepare for one of those teams, but it is what it is.
This game is pretty important too actually. With a win, BU moves back to .500 in the conference!! Something like that looked pretty far off when we were 2-5 and languishing in 8th place, which is basically last place if you don't count Stony Brook, which I don't. BU is coming off 2 of its best wins all year: comfortable victories over Maine and UNH. I got to watch the UNH game at Porters, a bar that is almost always willing to throw on an obscure game for you. I kept waiting for a collapse, but none came and BU was in control the entire time. It's become a broken record lately, but John Holland and Scott Brittain were fantastic, and Corey Lowe dropped in 23 without even trying.
BU is playing for its first 3-game winning streak of the year, and hopefully peaking for the most important part of the season As Dennis Wolff said in the Freep, "We need to start putting a little run together or it's going to be too late."
Stony Brook for its part is coming off a W at Maine, except that it was 9 games ago. But as was said on the AE message boards, at least they have this guy going for them:
Our "bracketbuster" match-up has been announced, and we will play St. Peters on Feb. 23rd. This is one of four bracketbuster games for America East, bringing some slight recognition to our conference. Of course, looking at all of the matchups now, there are a hell of a lot of bracketbuster matchups. It'd be sad if we had less than, say, the MAAC. Which we do.
Anyway, St. Peters is 2-10 in the MAAC, and 5-17 overall. Their signature win is against Rutgers.
This match-up leads me to believe that the NCAA is really stretching for Bracketbusters, because I seriously find it hard to believe that either of these teams' brackets will be busted by this game. In fact, it's actually quite obvious that the only way either team will make the tourney in March is with a win of each team's respective conference tournament.
But it's always fun to pretend. See you in wherever the hell St. Peters is.
I'll let the High Roller fill our readers in on the finer points of our experience in Boston last weekend (if he can remember any of them), but in the meantime there were two basketball games in the last week that merit mention.
The outcomes were different, and in each case the fortunes of the Terriers hinged on one Scott Brittain. At home against Vermont, Scott helped BU claim a 1 point lead at halftime, only to leave the game early in the second half with his 4th foul, allowing UVM to take command and we never recovered. Ibe went insane in the first half with 3 blocks, almost all in row - which really got the crowd going. John Holland had another really solid game, and Tyler looks like he's finally becoming himself again.
Highlights of this one included relentlessly heckling Vermont's #12 for airballing one shot and then -- I shit you not -- shooting over the shot clock on top of the basket when he was standing in the low block area of the paint. Worst shot I have ever seen in my life. One of their other guys airballed a free throw too, so we let him have it. It was fun to heckle Marqus Blakely too for his lame Mr. T haircut, but it wasn't as fun since he torched us for a double-double and rejected two BU dunks.
Fast forward to last Wednesday at Maine. This was one of BU's best games of the year. They never trailed, played great defense and won the turnover margin by a bunch. Holland, again, was fantastic, but the story was Scott. He went off for a career high 22 points. And the key? He didn't get whistled for his first foul until the last few minutes of the game. Scott really is our only offensive threat in the paint, so keeping him out of foul trouble needs to be a priority in the future.
BU got a nice surprise in the unexpected return of Corey Lowe - kid didn't even practice last week, and all of sudden shows up in Maine ready to ball. Surprised everyone, including the equipment manager, who didn't even bring Corey's #13 jersey on the trip. So, trooper that he is, Corey threw on the #14 and dropped in 7 points in limited minutes.
By the way, if you told me at the beginning of the year that in one game Carlos, Corey and Tyler would combine for 15 points and BU still won the game.... I would have punched you in the face and told you to never lie to me again.
That may still be true, and last night's 
