Back in Third Again: The Stony Brook Preview

That's twice we've played for first place, and came up short both times. Thankfully this one went a little better than against Vermont, but that doesn't change the fact that we are back in 3rd place again now.

BU didn't exactly play up to their abilities against Maine, but Maine's defense is legit. Most of the game was frustrating -- in fact I said during the game that it was the most frustrating one I've ever seen. However, the final 3 minutes in which BU forced its way back from 10 points down to tie it up with 5 seconds left ALMOST redeemed it. At least we showed some heart.

There was some serious bullshit with the time they put back on the clock after the last Maine timeout... but that's in the past - gotta move on. Proud of the Pelaggio - his layup to tie it was CLUTCH!

We play at Stony Brook tonight. Gonna be honest - not overly optimistic about this. We just haven't played well against the top teams in the conference. Number one priority: stick to that young man Brian Dougher like glue.

Halfway Home: The Maine Preview

How exciting is this! We're halfway through our conference schedule, and tonight we're playing for first place. Something odd though - the game isn't against Vermont, and it isn't against Albany or Binghamton. It's against Maine. That's right... terrible, basement-dwelling, joke of a team Maine. I know, I can't believe it either.

But right now, let's focus on the halfway through part. How did the first half go?

Well, we're playing for first place, so not too badly. We cleaned up against the crap teams, and we crapped the bed against the good ones. But in the words of the immortal Brian Johnson, 6-2 ain't a bad place to be.

The Story of the First Half: Coping With Injuries

Already without Scott Brittain and BJ Bailey, we lost Tyler Morris after the first AE game. At that point, many BU fans labeled the season a lost cause and were ready to write the season off. I publicly wondered who would run the point for BU.

Since then, the Terriers starters have pulled together and stepped up their game. And I've got two of them in mind in particular, and that's Corey Lowe and Carlos Strong. 'Los has really stepped up rebounding and on the defensive side of the ball, while still shooting 47% from 3 point range. And Corey has been all-around ridiculous; upping his points and assist numbers, while becoming a real leader on the floor.

The bench has been a problem all year, mainly because of those injury problems. But we're finally beginning to see a glimmer of hope (aka production) there, and from the unlikeliest of sources: Sherrod Smith (7 rebounds against UMBC!!!), Brendan Sullivan (5 rebounds against Binghamton!!), Tunde Agboola (shooting 67% for the year!!!) and yes even Mikey Schulze (a big '2' in the scoring column against UMBC).

What Can We Expect the Rest of the Year?

That all depends on how long our 4 main guys can keep up this pace. They are going to get TIRED. However, 5 of our final 9 are at home, so that helps.

It depends on whether the bench can continue to improve.

It depends on how good Tyler is, and to a lesser extent Brendan Sullivan, coming back from injury.

And it depends on how bad these 9 seniors want to finish out their careers on a good note.

My Prediction: Another 6-2, for a grand total of 14-4 and 2nd place.

I think the tired legs will make an impact at some point. But the experience and talent of the team will get it most of the way there.

It starts tonight in Maine. This is a team that is somehow good. They have a player, Gerald McLemore, who is maybe the next Corey Lowe in this league. And they've got some beefy guys who can patrol the paint. I'm hoping we can hold this one down, and be able to stand on top of the AE mountain for a few days.

The strangest BU basketball career ever

The Terriers had a fantastic night at The Greek last Tuesday - everything was working against Albany. Three-pointers were falling like whoa - a school record of 16! Johnny Holland had 21, Los had 18, JOB had 18. And Corey Lowe, despite only scoring 12 points, had another fantastic game with 5 steals, 6 assists and only 1 turnover!

The one negative coming out of the game was that we had another injury. And if I had told you at the beginning of the year that we would lose Brendan Sullivan to a separated shoulder and it would matter, I wouldn't have believed you. Actually, I would have said... Brendan Sullivan is back on the team? But this is just the latest chapter in the weirdest career of any BU athlete ever. Consider:

• Sullivan joins the 2005-06 Terrier squad as a highly touted freshman
• He doesn't make much of an impact, except for one an early season game against Rider in which he explodes for 15 points, all on 3-pointers.
• He messes up somehow and Wolff suspends him for the final regular season game and the AE tourney.
• He quits the team after the season.
• He stays at BU and spends the next 2 years playing pick-up hoops and presumably lounging around at the GSU
• He's announced at Terrier Tip-Off 08-09 as having rejoined the team as a walk-on, but only sees 4 mins of action all year
• Sully again quits the team, or is not asked to return, when Chambers takes over at the beginning of 09-10
• He is begged to return as a walk-on when it's clear we have a shortage of big men
• Sully then gains more and more PT until finally he's averaging over 15 mins in conference play this year
• And then, of course, Sully separates his shoulder and we're again short on big men.

We anxiously await Sully's return to the lineup.

Boy I'm glad I paid 40 bucks for my jersey: The Albany Preview

We got thrashed on Sunday, early and often. And for once, it wasn't man-beast Marqus Blakely doing the damage, since he ended up with only 11 points and 3 rebounds. We couldn't hit a damn thing for the first half of the game, and after that it didn't matter.

It was a disheartening loss and an embarrassing one, as I had a bunch of people come over and watch it in my apartment building's lounge. This included having get there and stake a claim on the main TV to ward off Cowboys fans. However, I don't think the loss was truly a reflection of our team. Consider:

1) We were coming off 4 games in a week, 3 of which were road games. Vermont came off a week of smoking doobies in the dorm rooms.

2) The Terriers actually showed some fight in the second half, playing hard until the final buzzer and keeping it a respectable 20-point loss (respectable, in that it could have easily been 30 or 35 points).

I don't think this was as bad as it looked. We're still 4-2 in the league, our stars still (eventually) shined and it represents the hardest our schedule gets all year and the most tired our team will be all year.

Well, up until tonight. We end this horrific stretch against Albany at The Greek tonight. It will be the 5th game in 10 days. I mean, come on. Will we have anything left in the tank?

I'm hoping a large crowd greets our weary warriors. They better show up, since the Athletic Department is springing for 1,000 BU basketball jerseys to give out. This is a fantastic thing! This blows every other giveaway they've ever done out of the water. If they gave out stuff like this all the time, people would actually show up... I mean it would bankrupt the Athletic Dept, but whatever.

Best of all, this could hopefully stem the tide of the most outrageous of Terrier fan faux-pas.... of course I'm speaking of the hockey jersey-wearing basketball fan. This phenomenon angers me like nothing this side of genocide, and it's an epidemic at BU. I want to knock these people out on sight. It's a basketball game, wear a basketball jersey or at worst a red t-shirt. If you wear a hockey jersey to basketball, you're not a real fan.

Now, thanks to this giveaway, nobody who calls themselves a BU basketball fan will have any good excuse. It's a FREE freakin jersey. Take one, wear it with pride, and save the hockey sweater for the next loss to UMass-Lowell.*

*Disclaimer: I do like the BU hockey team a lot, just not the people who wear the jersey to other sports.

A Familiar First-Place Match-up: The Vermont Preview

We didn't beat the shit out of Binghamton. In fact they seemed pretty frisky. But we did win, and due to the a-hole fans that is always a tough place to win.

Once again, Corey Lowe... you can's say enough about how good he's been since league play began. He had 22 points in this game and pretty much had his way.

He's going to need to keep it up today if we want to win today. We play our old frenemies, Vermont, in a battle for first place on ESPNU. (Quick aside: The athletic departments like to claim this, but ESPNU does not count as nationally televised. NOBODY gets this channel. I get Big Ten Network, NHL Network, CSTV... yet no ESPNU. I hate ESPNU.)

Here is the top of the standings right now:

Vermont	3	0
Boston University	4	1
Stony Brook	3	2
Maine	2	1

This has been common over the years - BU and UVM in 1st and 2nd place. Today's game is only the latest in a long line of first-place battles. Unfortunately, Vermont has come out on the winning end of these lately, winning 6 of the last 7 matchups.

The key for Vermont is obviously the ridiculous Marqus Blakely - he's their only really good player. Vermont's interior is superior; BU's perimeter is far better. Can we contain Blakely? Can Vermont contain Lowe, Holland AND O'Brien?

Should be a great game to check out on ESPNU (if you're one of the dozens of Americans to get it).

Winning With Integrity: The Binghamton Preview

I'll admit it: I circled this game as a win as soon as Tiki Mayben, DJ Rivera and the rest of the Cailfornia Penal League got kicked off the team over the summer. Wouldn't you have? Those guys represented like 90 percent of their returning talent. Yes they won the championship, but everyone who got them there is now gone, including smarmy coach Kevin Broadus. Old friend Dennis Wolff said, "I'm not sure they can win a game this year."

And here we are, January 14, and Binghamton has 7 wins and is an OT loss away from being undefeated in the league.

I delighted in those losers getting booted, as well as the crying of their annoying fans afterward, as much as anybody. However, it's somewhat gratifying and even inspiring that this rag-tag group of underachievers, even if they play for Binghamton, is putting together a run on their grit alone. We can learn something from this group; it's better to lose a few games and keep your integrity, than to sacrifice your values for a few wins.

That all said... let go down there and beat the shit out of them tonight.

Let's Avoid Unnecessary Nudity: The UMBC Preview

We play UMBC tonight. UMBC is unbearably awful. Like, really really bad. Like they make a bad team like Hartford look like... um, a good Hartford team (hard to believe those two schools competed for the AE title only 2 years ago... and we let them go on national television!!)

If we lose this game, I will streak around Nickerson Field naked at 2:00pm on Sunday, January 24, 2010. I am deadly serious about that. Hold me to it.

I don't even have anything else to say.

30 for 30

The depleted Terriers took care of bidness against lowly Hartford on Saturday, 84-70.

Most notable about the game was the 30-point performances from Corey Lowe and John Holland. Yeah, in the same game! We've never done that before. These two superstars scored exactly three-quarters of our total output. Relying so much on two guys is never a great idea, but thanks to our bench situation it may be necessary this year. We won't need 30 from both of them every time, but we'll need to have good performances.

Before the Hartford game, I did some research that said winning the game meant we should be cleaning up in the AE Tournament this year. I'll admit, it's a bit of a stretch. But check this out. Corey Lowe won the AE Player of the Week for his 28- and 31-point games this week, giving BU a total of three winners of the award so far this year (Jake O'Brien and Holland have already won it). The AE did this research on the other teams this decade that had three different players win AE Player of the Week in the same year:

Boston University (2009-10)
John Holland, Corey Lowe, Jake O'Brien

UMBC (2007-08)
Ray Barbosa, Jay Greene, Cavell Johnson, Darryl Proctor

Albany (2006-07)
Jason Siggers, Brent Wilson, Jamar Wilson

Albany (2005-06)
Lucious Jordan, Jason Siggers, Jamar Wilson, Kirsten Zoellner

Boston University (2001-02)
Chaz Carr, Jason Grochowalski, Matt Turner

Hofstra (2000-01)
Rick Apodaca, Roberto Gittens, Jason Hernandez, Norman Richardson

Every single one of those teams (except this year's BU Terriers, of course) won the America East that year and went to the Big Dance. OK come on, surely that has got to mean something, RIGHT??

Playing for our tournament lives: The Hartford Preview

First, let me say that I was extremely excited about the win over UNH on Thursday. I was pretty down about the team's chances on the road. Thankfully UNH forgot how to shoot a basketball, and thankfully Corey Lowe put the team on his back and gave them a piggy-back ride to the win.

Jake and John had tough games - but you could tell the team was making a conscious effort to bring the ball into the paint, and not jack up another school record for 3-point attempts. We only tried 10, instead of 37 against Stony Brook. This time it was UNH making that mistake, going 4-31 out there (!) on their way to sub-30% shooting overall.

Today the Terriers travel to the location of this year's America East Tournament (Hartford 2010!!) to take on the Hawks. This is like the opposite of The Mighty Ducks: these Hawks are not good. That's not to say that we're going to win this game (anything is possible with the 2009-10 Terriers), but UHa is 2-12 with a 9 game losing streak. Draw your own conclusions.

Hopefully the Terriers will use their time to scout the place and make sure they are quite comfortable there when they return for the tourney. I hope they become experts on the Chase Family Arena. But how have we done in the past when scouting the tourney location?

Albany 09
1/8/09:
@ Albany 62, BU 61
Tourney:
UMBC 79, BU 75

Binghamton 08
1/6/08:
@Binghamton 69, BU 49
Tourney:
BU 68, Albany 64
Hartford 59, BU 52

Boston 07 (N/A)

Binghamton 06
2/14/06:
@Binghamton 74, BU 51
Tourney:
Vermont 64, BU 61

Binghamton 05
2/27/05:
@Binghamton 65, BU 48
Tourney:
Maine 47, BU 45

Boston 04 (N/A)

Boston 03 (N/A)

Northeastern 02
1/20/02:
BU 95, @Northeastern 88
Tourney:
BU 86, Northeastern 76
BU 63, Hartford 60
BU 66, Maine 40

So let's see here. We haven't won at the location of the AE Tournament during the regular season since 2002, when we won the whole damn thing. Clearly, the lesson here is that we need to take care of business today against Hartford, and everything will work out perfectly on the first and second weekends of March! Make it happen!

FML: The UNH Preview

Tyler Morris broke his hand Tuesday in practice, Scott Brittain is basically out for the entire year, and BJ Bailey just transferred out.

Who is going to play for us!??!

Now, Corey Lowe is our ONLY ballhandler! What happens when Corey is in foul trouble or needs a breather? Nevermind that Corey is most effective off the ball - nobody else can bring it up. Is Mike Schultz going to get significant minutes? Will Carlos and John Holland bring up the ball? Tunde???

I'm not even sure we'll be able to finish .500 now. UNH tonight on the road will be a good barometer. They are not a bad team, but not top tier. Our core of Holland, Lowe and O'Brien is still better than any other in the league, but ZERO bench is ridiculous.

Poor Tyler Morris. This is the 4th major injury of his BU career. I'm sure he feels like shit right now, just wanting to play, and I feel bad for him. Here's hoping he can come back in a month (or less!) and contribute mightily to the stretch run and the tournament. And hoping we can stay afloat in the meantime.

Aberration, or is this who we are?

Not a great start to the conference season for the Terriers. First, credit is due to Stony Brook: Tommy Brenton was the negative polarity to the positive charge of the basketball on the boards, and Bryan Dougher just could not miss from 3-point land. I watched at a local bar and the bartender thought this guy was Larry Bird or something - we just knew it was going in every time he went up for a shot.

But BU was bad in this game. Thirty-seven 3-pointer attempts, a school record, highlights a team that is unable or unwilling to take the ball to the hoop by dribble or by pass. We need to get tough and bring the ball to the hoop! Corey Lowe couldn't hit a thing, and that's the risk when all we do is take threes. A few games ago, there was a real effort to get the ball to Jeff Pelage against Marist - yes he had 5 turnovers on traveling violations, but he also had 8 points and 10 rebounds. That's production we need; his footwork will improve. JOB was our best player against Stony Brook with 27 points, but even Coach Chambers said, "Jake played great from 3-point land, but I’d like to see him get in there and mix it up a little bit more."

We can all agree that the Chambers Era is not off to the rosy start we all envisioned. There has been a very interesting discussion on the subject in the comments section of the last post. I think an adjustment period is expected and understandable. The players will eventually get used to the system and playbook if they haven't already. But much of our trouble this year stems from our complete lack of a bench, and I put some of the blame for this on Chambers' shoulders. BJ Bailey's departure isn't his fault, and neither is Scott Brittain's injury. But Chambers gambled by taking 3 transfers (who need to sit out a year) instead of a JuCo or 2 (who could play right away). Our problems right now prove that he lost that gamble.

My own take is that we lost a tough game to a decent opponent due somewhat to an inordinately bad performance by one of our better players. I think we'll be better by next game and in first or second place by the end of the year. But hey, I'm an optimist by nature!

The real fun begins: The Stony Brook Preview

Today, BU enters conference play with a record of 5-7. Not great but not too bad - especially given the injury limitations we had and the quality of teams we ended up losing to.

The 74-60 loss against Dayton closed out the slate, an effort of which I was very proud. After the horrendous 17-2 start, BU kept the game even. They continually battled back keeping the score within single digits most of the time. When we got it down to 4 early in second half, I was legitimately excited for a possible upset. Of course, once you start thinking about it is when it stops happening.

John Holland had a rough game, but he was picked up by a few of his teammates and the team still played well. That's a good sign.

Our game today puts us against Stony Brook, the traditional punching bag of the league (and namesake of the Stony Brook Invitational Play-In Game). But this year... they seem decent! They didn't play anybody good in non-conference, but they did better than they usually do. This will be a good barometer game going into the AE season to find out where we are.

I'm glad we get to open up at home! Maybe our mascot will even be there, OMG!!

Where the F&%# is Rhett

On December 21, I attended the Mount St. Mary's/BU game at the Roof. At least I thought it was a home game at the Roof, but I couldn't really tell... because our damn mascot still doesn't show up for games!!!


Because of the joys of being an out-of-town fan, I have been to 3 regular season home games over the last 2 years. And our mascot Rhett has been at exactly none of them. Does he even freakin exist anymore? Or did they put him to sleep because he's too damn lazy? I remember when Rhett was a mascot I respected. His old suit used to be a bad-ass muscular physique, not the girly teddy-bear look he has now. And he showed up for EVERYTHING.

What is the point of having a mascot if he doesn't go to games? I don't care if he's been to every single hockey game (he probably has in fact!) - this school's athletic program is thankfully more than hockey. And don't tell me this is a holiday thing. The cheerleaders and the entire band were able to be at all of those games.

How sad is it that our mascot can't show up to a game, yet this guy is able to be there and waltz around our gym freely:

I'm serious. Who wears this to a BU game? The ticket guy at the entrance should have knocked this guy out.