BU Hoops Blog

A Joyful Ride Home from Rhody

2011-11-30T18:15:00.000-05:00

What a turnaround for our guys. After the most heartbreaking loss on Friday, nobody could have blamed them for dragging a little through the rest of the weekend. Instead, even more inspired play resulted in hard-fought wins against Rhode Island and then Hofstra.

Credit the team leadership. Not just Coach Jones, but the captains. Matty Griffin shook off the end of the Cleveland State game to make some big threes, and Pat Hazel talked about sending a text to Coach after the loss to say, in effect, "We aight Coach. We got this."

DP scored over 20 points yet again - he is now tied for 7th in the country - and earned the AE Player of the Week award. Pat Hazel continued his new-found ferocity in the paint. And even though you could tell he was gassed from 3 games in 3 days, DJ ran circles around defenders.

Gotta feel good about this club right now.

Tonight, BU has a winnable game at home against the Dela-where Blue Hens. I'll let you in on a shameful secret though. Now, I ain't no do-gooder or nothin, but I have to miss tonight's game to be at an undisclosed charity function. Depending on how long it takes BU All-Access to archive the game video feed, I may have to sequester myself from all America East web sites, Twitter, and maybe even ESPN until I have a chance to watch the game - and who knows how long that will be. Even the New York Times or CNN could be off-limits, on the off-chance BU breaks historic records by scoring 200 points, or the game goes 9 overtimes or something.

So none of you jokers better email/tweet/call/comment/show up at my apt until you're sure I know the outcome!

First win means Narragansett Beers all around!

2011-11-27T10:36:00.000-05:00

Great win for the Terriers last night in Little Rhody. I honestly thought we had no chance to take out the Rams, who proved to be just as inept as the NFL version.

My last trip to Rhode Island's Ryan Center was the first round of the 2004 NIT, which was a majorly disappointing 28-point loss.

Yesterday's trip was much more satisfying. DJ Irving was unstoppable - he was just too quick to the basket. Darryl Partin made a few very tough shots and was steady at the free throw line - a major upgrade from the Cleveland State game. Travis Robinson continues to improve, making some big threes along with some pretty layups and dishes. But the revelation of the season continues to be Patrick Hazel. I remarked to some fellow BU fans at the game that I think Pat might be our best player. Now, maybe that's not true... DJ could probably play on a Big East team, and Pat already proved that he couldn't. But Pat might be our most important. He again showed some ferocity in the post.

There was one play that I thought was the turning point of the game. BU was down by 9 points with about 14 minutes left in the second half, and the team was dragging a little. Darryl missed a short jumper, and there were 3 Rams surrounding the rebound. But Pat comes flying out of nowhere, above everyone else, and muscles to get the board. Then he put it back up, making the basket and getting fouled. It was a great play, and got BU fired up. From that point on, the Terriers were the more energized and tenacious team, and it showed on the scoresheet.

Best part of this win was the free Providence Journal newspaper that came with our hotel room, which had a full two pages of BU-URI in the front of the sports section. Woo-hoo for Terrier analysis in print!

Back to the Ryan Center today for the former-AE Hofstra ~~Dutchmen~~ Pride.

Fake Tournament Blues

2011-11-26T15:59:00.000-05:00

As bad as our loss in the "TicketCity Legends Classic" stung yesterday, consider the case of Cleveland State. They may win every game in this "tournament" and yet they still wouldn't be the champions.

Why? Because this is a fake tournament!

Cleveland St. can't become the "TicketCity Legends Classic" champion, because the championship game has already been played! And guess what, it was won by Vanderbilt, who Cleveland St. beat in the first round! What a sham.

I find it sickening that BU could have found itself in the same position if we had beaten Texas (yeah yeah, I know... in my dreams). Honestly, I'd rather not play in a tournament than have no honest chance of winning it. Of course the reason for this is $$$ alone. These things should be outlawed.

Can you imagine the outrage if the NCAA tournament moved to this model? They'd still play the first two rounds, but after that they would ignore the results and all the upsets, and put the top 16 seeds into the Sweet Sixteen anyway.

This is a clear affront to the idea of fairness and competition, and must be stopped. That said, I'll be at the Ryan Center to enjoy tonight's game against Rhode Island, fairness be damned.

At least our girlfriends still love us

2011-11-26T12:38:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, BU lost to Cleveland State in one of the most excruciating losses I can remember, 63-62. The Terriers allowed an 11-point lead with less than 10 minutes left evaporate into thin air, thanks to some shoddy FT shooting down the stretch, a clock operator mistake, and then a terrible inbound plus a foul with 5 seconds left. Read the gory details here.

Cleveland State came into the game as 10-point favorites over BU (which is more than Pitt was favored over Penn), armed with a win over a Top-10 team and coming in at #26 in the most recent AP poll. Make no mistake, this would have been a HUGE win for BU. This would have been the closest we'd come to a win over a ranked team since the magical run of '59.

Most deserving of a turd sandwich are the guards from the scarlet and white. Darryl Partin played well overall (yes, he's now the #7 scorer in the nation), but man we've got to hit the free throws, and in the second half he didn't. I think we got spoiled last year by John Holland and his 90% FT percentage closing out games. This was a problem in the close Northeastern loss too. And you know what else was a problem from that game? Inbounding the ball, which became a problem at the worst possible time against Cleveland State. With 5.5 seconds left and a one-point lead, even on a second try, we have to get the ball in (I'm referring to you, Matt Griffin). There are no excuses for that, especially with a time out sitting in our back pocket.

I can't think of many worse ways to lose a game:

- opposing player tells you he's been cheating with your girlfriend as he skies in for a game-winning dunk.

- ref awards technical FTs to the other team after hearing you swear in reaction to finding out your girlfriend cheated on you.

- while cheating on you with the opposing coach, your girlfriend tells him all of the team's last second inbounding plays, leading to a turnover and bucket.

Basically, all the worse ways of losing a game involve finding out your girlfriend cheated on you. This was a tough loss.

Pat's Meaner Demeanor

2011-11-20T13:42:00.000-05:00

Pat Hazel played an underrated role in BU's championship run last year. He doesn't put up big offensive numbers, but over the last half of the season he became a force in the middle of the defense. In the end, I guess he was accurately rated because he was awarded a spot on the AE All-Defensive Team.

But while Pat hasn't registered any blocks yet on the season, we've seen renewed vigor on the offensive side as he is scoring 7.5 points per game in the young season. One thing I noticed during the Northeastern game was some really solid inside moves and nifty footwork by Pat when he got the ball. This was against NU's very athletic and tall interior line. If Pat can keep showing aggression and using these moves to get to the basket, he could make an impact on offense this year.

The key with Pat, as always, is making sure he stays clear enough from foul trouble to continue being a factor.

We still don't know if Dom Morris is going to get around to utilizing his size to get inside (instead of chucking up 3-pointers over and over and over...). Cornell has some height on the interior, but they aren't athletic as the Northeastern or Texas front lines. This game should be a good test of whether we can be successful scoring with our bigs.

Steers and Jeers: The Texas Review

2011-11-16T19:00:00.000-05:00

I attempted to watch this game on my Motorola Droid while on the New Jersey Turnpike on Sunday night. See, the University of Texas started up this cute little television network with ESPN called the Longhorn Network that everyone seems to like, especially Texas's friends in the Big XII Conference. And this past weekend, the Longhorn Network had a free preview to show everyone how awesome it is! And imagine, it was the BU game they wanted to show off for everyone!

It didn't take too long to realize why the UT powers-that-be wanted this game to be seen by many: it was a complete and utter blowout.

It was hard for me to tell exactly what was going on - viewing the choppy video on my phone meant staggered audio, frozen video frames, and having to refresh the whole damn thing every couple minutes or so. And to be honest, things we're going OK when we were leading 19-18 with 6 minutes to go in the first half. But it became clear, in between refreshes, that BU was too small, too slow and outhustled. It turned into a 36-point loss -- one of the worst I can remember.

Texas, despite losing a few guys to ~~the NBA~~ sitting around on the couch, has some serious athletes, some of whom could not be stopped. J'Covan Brown, for example, with a relaxed 28 points.

Normally, I'd finish this blog post with a "steers and queers" joke, but I can't. We've been humbled by the Longhorns.

Packed to the Gills: The Northeastern Review

2011-11-12T01:32:00.001-05:00

Let's get this out of the way. We lost to one of our main rivals, in overtime. It sucked. Moving on...

This needs to be said: I've never seen the Roof packed like that in my life - and I've been to two America East Championship games there. Every seat was filled, and people kept streaming in. Kids were filling every aisle, stuffing every corner of the gym and basically hanging off the rafters. I'm not sure how many standing room tickets were sold, but I'm damn glad the fire marshal didn't show up tonight. Terriers, PLEASE keep this up!

The BU student section was phenomenal, the best I've ever seen it. It was huge, it was loud, and it was on its feet the whole game. Northeastern brought a nice little contingent as well, which made for a REALLY fun college basketball atmosphere. Chants back and forth, screaming no matter who was scoring or had momentum. I must admit I questioned the NU students' decision to remove all their shirts during the overtime period, considering their various physiques (flabby/manboobs or scrawny nicole ritchie types)... but hey they won the game so maybe that was the right play.

As for the basketball itself, BU showed some flashes but we have a ways to go before we're a really good team. Lots of dumb mistakes tonight - holding onto the ball after a rebound, free-throws, inbounding??? It was pretty obviously the first game of the season, because things looked rusty.

But I saw good things too. DJ Irving and Darryl Partin showed the type of scoring versatility that we'll need from them this year. I thought Pat Hazel was very solid, on offense and defense, when he wasn't picking up fouls. Mattt Griffin came up with some huge 3-pointers in the last couple minutes. The freshmen Chionuma and Kennedy showed glimpses of why they're so highly touted in the few minutes of action they got.

And that comeback from 11 points down with 3 or 4 minutes to go?? Very gutsy. That alley-oop tip-in to Hazel with 1.1 seconds left was INCHES from ending that game.

I like this team. They'll get better and make some noise this year, count on it.

#1 Egregiously Omitted Summer Story: Joe Jones enters

2011-11-11T12:53:00.002-05:00

We have finally made it to the last important story of the summer that I did not write about, and it's led me to two conclusions: 1) I'm never doing this again -- writing 12 blog posts on big stories in 3 days is a shit ton of work, and 2) I never want to see the word "egregiously" anywhere near my blog again, ever.

After the shock and disappointment of Pat Chambers' departure, the summer got more interesting -- we needed a new coach. Someone who could keep the incredible momentum of the brief Chambers reign going and build on it. I honestly don't want to get into who interviewed, who was rumored for the job, or anything like that -- because to be honest who knows how much of that stuff was correct? Suffice it to say, Joe Jones got the job.

Who is he? Well, we had no idea - we just knew he came from BC. (So far, off to a bad start.) But picking a complete unknown worked last time, so why not.

It turns out Coach Jones has a lot in common with Chambers -- both learned under Villanova's Jay Wright and both have the extremely outgoing (non-Wolff) personality. But Coach Jones has 4 times the experience as an assistant, as well as a (somewhat) successful head coaching stint at Columbia, which he took from god-awful to just merely not very good.

It's clear from interviews that Jones has a Chambers-like ability to connect with players (none of Chambers' recruits bailed on us) and fans:

Only one question really remains: is he a spy from BC who has been sent over to sabotage us? It's a fair question, and we can really just wait-and-see. Until we know, I'm on 100% board with Coach Jones and can't wait to see what he can do this year.

#2 Egregiously Omitted Summer Story: Pat Chambers leaves

2011-11-11T09:33:00.001-05:00

After March, Pat Chambers was a god to us. He took us to two straight AE finals, including a championship and our first Big Dance in a decade. The future looked even brighter. I’m not going to say he could have gotten away with murder, but he certainly could have pantsed Dr. Robert Brown, BU President, in the middle of Comm Ave and received nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

For these reasons, BU AD Mike Lynch offered Chambers a contract extension through 2016 in early May. We were excited. Lynch was excited. Chambers was excited. After he signed the extension, Chambers stated:

“This is where I want to be. We’ve made this my dream job and again, you don’t get this type of support anywhere,” Chambers said. “We love the city of Boston, we love the university and we’re very grateful of this opportunity that they’ve given us and for BU basketball and what it’s done for us in this short time as a head coach.”

Less than one month after saying BU is where he wants to be, Chambers accepted the head coaching job at Penn State, a forever underachieving Big Ten program that will never make much more than a ripple next to its football program.

The hire for Penn State was hailed as an excellent move, and the Nittany Lions fans rejoiced. Reaction at BU was mixed, to say the least. I can only speak for myself, but I was a little miffed. On the one hand, Chambers got us the championship we wanted, left the cupboard full, and we can all understand the appeal of a bigger paycheck closer to home. But on the other hand, it made it obvious that everything he had said about our program was disingenuous lip service.

Not only was BU not exactly "where [he] wanted to be," but there was unfinished business as well. As I pointed out in this article in the Penn State Daily Collegian, everyone remembers Chambers' proclamation of turning BU into the "Gonzaga or Xavier of the East"... something virtually impossible in a mere two-year stay.

Look, everyone wants to move up to a better job. But Penn State is a shitty job. It's a near no-win situation in a place that doesn't care about basketball.

In the end, the majority of fans are not going to hold this against Pat Chambers, including me. He is a good guy, and we probably would have made the same decision. We may just be a little more skeptical the next time a flashy young coach roars into town talking big about his giant aspirations for our modest little program.

Best of luck to you, Coach Chambers, truly - and thank you for everything. But don't be offended if I call your team the Shittany Lions.

_____________________________________________

The postscript to this is the awful situation unraveling now in Happy Valley (which takes on a whole new, terrible meaning). I have no sympathy for anyone who went down in flames for any part of the cover-up or failure to act on allegations of child rape. But how is this going to affect Coach Chambers and his historically terrible basketball program? It's not fair to him or his players, but this is going to suck for them.

A few days ago, Chambers was interviewed about how somber the mood on campus was. Well, I have a feeling it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. One can't help but wonder if Coach Chambers regrets his decision to leave BU for this shitshow, or if he'd take it back if he could.

Penn State's first basketball game under Chambers is this Saturday, and was timed to begin right as the football game got out. In retrospect... yeah that's not going to be good for business.

#3 Egregiously Omitted Summer Story: BU keeps it close with Kansas

2011-11-11T02:00:00.000-05:00

Usually I fail to write about the last game of the season because I’m depressed about the loss, but this year was different. There was nothing depressing about the Terriers’ 78-59 loss to #1 Kansas, and in fact I came away from watching the game and I was beaming, exhilarated, and proud to be a Terrier.

I couldn’t go to Tulsa to be at the game (and yes I seriously contemplated taking 3 days off from work to drive all the way out there and back… mapped a route and everything), so I planned an alumni watch at DC’s Old Dominion Brew Pub. Awesome turnout – Terriers came out of the woodwork and filled the room I reserved. I put up a renegade Boston University banner on the wall of the bar.

I was so nervous that we were into the third 3-foot tall beer tower by the time the game started.

The Morris twins were clearly a force of nature, and over time eroded the BU defense like waves crashing down on a beach. The inevitable happened with about 10 minutes left in the game, when we could no longer hold them at bay and we could no longer keep up on our offensive end. But the 30 minutes that preceded that were pure joy.

Far from being intimidated by the Jayhawks and getting blown out from the opening tip, we stayed within a couple points the entire first half, and even led at a few different points (!) – Holland made some sick shots and DJ was racing up and down the court faster than any KU guards.

Down 4 points at halftime, my phone was blowing up with long-lost friends… “can u believe this??” … “shock da world!” ... “gooooooo Terriers!!”. People told me that John Holland was trending on twitter.

Yes, we ended up losing. But we went to the Big Dance, and we looked good. DJ and JH showed their skillz to a national audience. And Terriers around the country walked out of bars like Old Dominion knowing our boys gave it their best shot… and that we’d be back before too long.

#4 Egregiously Omitted Summer Story: John Holland graduates

2011-11-10T17:53:00.007-05:00

We've just said goodbye to one of the greatest Terriers to don the scarlet and white.

John Holland capped his career in the most satisfying way possible -- a legacy-redeeming run through the America East tournament, picking up the tourney's Most Outstanding Player award along the way, and sealing the championship with an individual performance that transcended anything I've ever experienced as a Terrier fan.

The second half of that championship game changed the way we'll think about John's career at BU and turned him from a hero into a legend. And as we all remember from The Sandlot: "Heroes get remembered... but legends never die."

Number 23 leaves as a 2,000-point scorer (over 2,200 in fact) and second to only Tunji in terms of greatness. Only Reggie Lewis had over 2,000 points, 700 rebounds and 200 steals in America East history. It'll be a while before we see another Terrier like John Holland.

Since his illustrious collegiate career concluded, John's been continuing to make headlines. Aside from the AE Player of the Year and AE Tournament Most Outstanding Player, John won all sorts of national and regional honors like AP All-American Honorable Mention and many others that I can't even name. He was invited to the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament for NBA draft scouts, and actually made a few waves and got mentioned as a possible second-rounder (though we know that didn't happen).

He played internationally for Puerto Rico in the FIBA Americas basketball tournament and played pretty well, scoring in double-digits in 3 of the 10 games. By the way, his dunks are just as exciting in Spanish - watch this coast-to-coast slam on someone's head:

Finally, John signed a contract to play professionally in France for Chorale Roanne Basket, and he's actually kicking serious ass over there. In his first 3 games, he has scored 14, 18 and 22 points. You can see his updated statistics here.

Not to mention, John was one of the nicest and polite people I met at Boston University, with a good head on his shoulders - he's going to go far.

John Holland rules.

#5 Egregiously Omitted Summer Story: JOB has foot surgery

2011-11-10T12:57:00.002-05:00

Poor Jake O'Brien can't catch a break... unless you mean a bone in his foot.

He's stuck with this BU program through a lot. We forgave him for attending BC High and in the end accepted him as one of our own. He was a Dennis Wolff guy, and after a fantastic freshman year almost transferred when Wolff was fired. He didn't progress as much as we hoped under Pat Chambers, and was hurt for the second half of last year. When BU made it's memorable title run, Jake was stuck sitting on the sidelines in a suit and tie.

Sadly, that's where Jake will be as BU attempts to defend that title. He's gone under the knife to have surgery to work on that foot again.

The team is going to miss Jake's leadership this year - if not for him sitting out, I'd have predicted BU to finish in first place. This definitely hurts our chances at a repeat.

But, he sounds committed to recovery and playing again next year, so here's hoping we can keep this success going another 2 years, and give JOB a chance to celebrate on the floor with his teammates.

#6 Egregiously Omitted Summer Story: BU selected Pre-Season #1

2011-11-10T09:29:00.002-05:00

It's ridiculous. For the FIFTH straight year, the coaches of the America East have predicted that BU will finish in first place. This despite three different BU coaches over that time period, and no actual first-place finishes in the standings.

So what is it that keeps these boneheads from being at all creative and picking someone else?

We just lost our coach and the best player in the league BY FAR, and our inside-out matchup problem has to have foot surgery again. Meanwhile Stony Brook comes back from a title game loss with nearly everything intact, plus pull in a great recruiting class, plus re-gain probable MVP candidate Tommy Brenton from knee surgery.

The pre-season polls don't mean anything really, except that it forces BU to continue to be seen as an underachieving program, which simply is not true. BU has finished above .500 in 9 out of the last 10 years, and during that one exception we were 8-8. The program has been consistently very good, but is judged a failure only because of the expectations set by some group of outsiders.

The poll ended up looking like this:

1. Boston U. (6) 62
2. Stony Brook (3) 56
3. Vermont 46
4. Albany 42
5. New Hampshire 39
6 Maine 32
T-7. Hartford 18
UMBC 18
9. Binghamton 11

Are they doing this to intentionally set us up for failure? I hope we end up winning the whole thing just to stick it to these damn coaches.

#7 Egregiously Omitted Summer Story: Touted frosh join the team

2011-11-09T23:39:00.006-05:00

While we have to wait a full year to see what we've got in John Papale, Maurice Watson and Nathan Dieudonne, we need only wait mere days to see what BU has in newcomers James Kennedy and Zach Chionuma.

Again, I plead general ignorance about players before they actually join the team. But, so far I have heard (unsurprisingly) great things about both players.

These guys are the final link to Coach Chambers, and thankfully they stayed on board after he left. Thanks for the parting (Partin?) gift, Coach!

ZACH CHIONUMA is known as an explosive scorer, getting to the basket any number of ways -- slashing, pulling-up, dunking, bombing from deep. At 6'5", he's got serious "length" for a guard, and though he has quite a few guys in front of him, I'm hearing he'll see a lot of court time. His size could create matchup problems similar to a guy like Darryl Partin.

It is incredibly depressing that Zach was born in the year 1992.

NERR story

JAMES KENNEDY has been described to me as a "bulldog"... which makes me wonder why he didn't end up at Yale or Georgia... I personally prefer my Terriers to be terriers. Kennedy already has one strike against him, since he chose the uniform 23, of the Immortal John Holland. However, despite being a trifle undersized for a forward at 6'6", everyone reports that he has an amazing "motor" and has strength that will keep him pushing the bigger boys around underneath the basket.

This quote from Kennedy brings joy: "I probably could have gone higher but when I got to the campus I knew it was the right fit." That's right, you heard him - he knows he coulda gone higher but eff that noise.

NERR story

By all accounts these guys are great pieces to add to the club, in addition to redshirters Malik Thomas and the 7-footer Mat Piotrowski - both of whom I really have no clue what to expect, if anything. I wouldn't look forward to seeing these guys on the court at tip-off on Friday, but you'll see them before halftime.

#8 Egregiously Omitted Summer Story: Class of 2016 shaping up

2011-11-09T18:13:00.002-05:00

I have never been big on recruiting news, so I may not have written about this anyway. I also don't know what the hell I am talking about when it comes to high school recruits, so more than likely I'd either be regurgitating something I saw elsewhere on the internet, or talking out my ass.

So forgive me if any of this turns out to be dead wrong, but it seems like our new Coach Jones is putting together one hell of a first recruiting class. By my count, BU will have 4 scholarships available, due to the graduations of Pelage, Hazel, Griffin, and Partin. As of now, three of those have been filled, and each signing is getting pretty legit kudos from people who know much more than me.

John Papale, SG - Choate (MA) - 6'3" 165 lbs - http://twitter.com/#!/JPapale12

One of the best pure shooters in the country, supposedly the kid is like a better verson of Corey Hassan, who we only got to see for one season but was a deadly shooter. Papale had over 20 Division I scholarship offers including no less than 7 from the Atlantic 10. This is what ESPN.com scouting had to say about him:

A big time shot maker with good size for the two-guard spot, Papale is far from a one trick pony thanks to a high basketball I.Q., well developed mid-range game, and his ability to rebound on the perimeter.

Uhhh... sign me up!

NERR story
ESPN Boston story

Maurice Watson, PG - Boys Latin (PA) - 5'9" 150 lbs - http://twitter.com/#!/ReeceWatson10

"Reece" was ranked the #6 player in Pennsylvania, and dammit is he fast. That's why Virginia, LaSalle, and 16 others wanted him. The most ridiculous thing? He hosted a college selection news conference for himself and broadcast it on Ustream, at which he unzipped his jacket to reveal a BU t-shirt. That is fucking baller. Here is some of ESPN's scouting report:

His speed is the calling card and he's got plenty of it. Can drive it and find shooters. Best attribute is that he's got an edge to him and pushes the basketball with purpose. Takes great care of the ball and isn't too risky with his passes.

And the only other thing that needs to be said is watch this video. Can you imagine him playing next to DJ Irving? Not even fair for whatever slow-moving white dude Vermont puts out there that day.

Recruit Scoop story
Philadelphia Inquirer story

Nathan Dieudonne, SF - Trinity (KY) - 6'6" 190 lbs. - http://twitter.com/#!/NathanDieudonne

He's a big inside presence, which we'll need desperately after this year with Pelage and Hazel leaving. I don't know much about this guy other than he also had 20+ scholarship offers. Not sure how Coach Jones got his Kentucky recruiting connections, but let's hope they pay off! New England Recruiting Report had this to say about his game:

Dieudonne, who ran with the KYA All-Stars on the AAU circuit this summer, is an athletic combo-forward who can put the ball on the floor, score over top of defenders in the mid-range area, and make athletic plays around the rim.

Louisville Courier-Journal story
NERR story

That's what we got so far, and we still can probably look forward to one more. TODAY begins the fall signing period, so these guys will sign official Letters of Intent this month. Welcome Baby Terriers!

#9 Egregiously Omitted Summer Story: 2011-12 Schedule released

2011-11-09T12:07:00.001-05:00

Every year, we wait patiently to see what kind of goodies the OOC-Fairy has left in our Schedule Basket. And this year, after many years of waiting, she has left us a particularly tasty morsel: a date with our ugly step-sister up the road, the Eagles of Boston College (sucks!).

In real life, a date with a maiden this hideous would be the stuff nightmares are made of... she shows up late, her breath smells of garlic and funyuns, she has a zit the size of North Dakota on the old honker, she won't STFU about her lame-ass job, and to top if off she won't even let you get to second base in the backseat of your Honda on the way home. In short, she sucks.

But in college basketball world, this is our dream date. Our Terriers have wanted a piece of these Beagles since BC cut off the series in 2004 after a too-close-for-comfort 6-point victory at home. And whether this change of heart is due to their new head coach or just a much-needed sack enlargement procedure, we're glad it's happening this year. Why? Because they are going to SUCK even more than usual!! In the traditional sense, of losing games. On their web site's front page alone, it trumpets the news of 1) being picked 12th a.k.a. LAST in their conference-- and 2) squeaking out their exhibition game by 4 points over something called American International College. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but this could be a real fun year to face Chestnut Hill University.

The schedule also provides other delights. We travel down to Austin to play Texas on the Longhorn Network, cause of much chagrin amongst Texas A&M, the Pac-12 and other parties. For some reason we travel to Philly THREE SEPARATE TIMES, to play at Villanova, St. Joe's and LaSalle - here's hoping the boys don't gorge themselves on cheesesteaks. We play a very solid slate of good mid-major programs, highlighted by the 3-day Legends Classic against Rhode Island, Hofstra and Cleveland State - I will be personally lobbying hard for a road trip to that one. And of course, we open against our rivals from the dirty side of Boston.

Here is the out-of-conference schedule in its entirety:

11/11/11 vs. Northeastern
11/13/11 at Texas
11/20/11 at Cornell
11/25/11 vs. Cleveland State
11/26/11 at Rhode Island
11/27/11 vs. Hofstra
11/30/11 vs. Delaware
12/03/11 at Boston College
12/07/11 at Saint Joseph's
12/10/11 vs. Harvard
12/13/11 at Villanova
12/22/11 vs. Bucknell
12/29/11 at La Salle
12/31/11 at Quinnipiac

#10 Egregiously Omitted Summer Story: Hot Dog and Jesus break blog silence

2011-11-08T23:32:00.001-05:00

The BU fan community was rocked last year by the graduations of icons Hot Dog and Jesus and the subsequent cessation of their blog. Steadfast supporters through it all, these guys had the good sense to quit while they were ahead (unlike me), but in doing so left a massive void on the sidelines of all BU sports and in the online commentary space. Who was going to do the yeoman's work of amassing photos of all the dance team members so that we could rate and drool over them?

I knew the Hot Dog, at least, was around for BU's championship run last year -- in fact, it was he and I who were partly responsible due to our good-luck BU Dog Tags (U74431920, represent).

Needless to say, Terrier Nation was clamoring for a voice of reason, and it (re)appeared on July 21 when the Hot Dog and Jesus Blog arose like Lazarus from the ashes to give an update on all things Terrier Hoop. Yes, there was no reason for us to worry; Hot Dog and Jesus have been watching over things from afar.

While HD was back for a day, we don't know if he'll be contributing on a regular basis this season. My guess is, sadly, no. Which means that massive void in the BU fandom still exists. Who will take the mantle of the mega-fans of BU? Time was, what BU hoops lacked in numbers we made up for with intensity. I'm not even sure that's going to be the case now.

BU students, prove me wrong. I want to show up on Friday and see, if not thousands of you, maybe just 5 or 10 who are REALLY nutso intense about it. But thousands would be better. Maybe this call to action, written by a very devoted BU fan himself, will help. But I know as well as anyone that variations on this column (with slight changes to the title, byline and a few adjectives) is re-printed in the Freep every year, and nothing ever changes.

What will it take to make a difference? The Hot Dog may have said it best in his return to the interwebs: "It's BU basketball. On your feet."

#11 Egregiously Omitted Summer Story: BU AD Mike Lynch joins twitter

2011-11-08T17:39:00.002-05:00

Big news from the world of social media, as BU's reclusive chieftain of sport Mike Lynch has joined the ranks of such luminaries as @KourtneyKardash, @charliesheen, and @shitmydadsays.

I'm impressed to note that the tweets appear to be authentic and written by Mr. Lynch himself -- however, the page lacks the "Verified Account" badge as yet so I'll reserve final judgment on that.

You can follow him here: http://twitter.com/#!/BU_AD_MLynch

While the AD's tweets so far have mainly trumpeted the achievements of the various BU athletic teams (and there's certainly nothing wrong with that!), I'm hoping his account will consist of more than PR pablum and we get to see an insiders view of the department and its day-to-day vision and strategy. This is something the fans desperately want. We need more than the date and time of the next basketball game... we need our leaders' true feelings on the outcome, what he ate at the game, what he thought of a clever fan chant, or whether the refs screwed us. I'd also love to know if the AD at Boston College has been a dick about scheduling a basketball game at The Greek, or if the AD feels the same way about Northeastern as the rest of us do.

One disappointment so far: As of this writing, nothing from Mr. Lynch as to the failure of BU to be swept up in the conference realignment madness. Looking forward to his thoughts about how the trickle down could aid BU's rise to collegiate athletic dominance.

#12 Egregiously Omitted Summer Story: H.J. Gaskins leaves team

2011-11-08T14:04:00.002-05:00

I don't know if we ever expected much if anything out of poor H.J. aka Henry. He came to BU with his two talented "brothers" from the same high school team -- Dom Morris and Travis Robinson -- but unlike the others had to pay his own way. Then he sat on the bench for the first half of the season, before disappearing completely from the bench, due to a need to focus on academics, according to Coach Chambers.

I think we all kind of wondered if Chambers promised to take on H.J. if it would get Dom and Travis to come aboard. Which I love -- anything creative BU can offer to get talented guys to join is fine with me (within NCAA limits, of course). It seems to have worked, but we don't yet know how much of a coup this was. Dom had a very solid freshman year campaign, but T-Rob remains an unknown at this point. If T-Rob busts, then it's like we took on TWO guys just to get the services of Dom. If Dom becomes a First Teamer, then it would be worth it no matter how good Travis becomes.

In any event, H.J. was put out of his misery for good this summer, having been completely erased from the roster by either Coach Chambers or Coach Jones. In order to give H.J. his due, I will now reprint the entirety of H.J.'s highlights from BU directly from the website:

AS A FRESHMAN IN 2010-11

Appeared for one minute each against Marist and Villanova.

I can honestly say life was better with a guy named H.J. around. Best of luck on your studies.

"Boy, That was an Egregious Failure of Blog Stewardship"

2011-11-08T11:50:00.014-05:00

If there is one thing this blog is known for, it's taking it easy over the summer. In fact, I never even write about the final game of the season, mostly because I'm depressed about it -- as Kyle says, "it always ends in a loss." Depression + Laziness = Dormant Blog.

This summer, the absence was even more inexcusable than usual. Some serious shit happened around here! And I was off learning how to do the Party Rock Anthem dance, or somesuch. So it all went undocumented... here at least, which is all that matters.

So I'm ready to make amends and make sacrifices and make it up to you... right after I make a sandwich for lunch. Starting this afternoon, I'll count down the Top 12 Things I Neglected to Write About Over the Summer, in order of egregiousness of the omission. They'll range from "Eh, Even the Best of Blogs Let a Story or Two Slip By" to "WTF, What is the Point of Having a Blog if You're Not Writing About This?"

#12: H.J. Gaskins leaves the team
#11: BU AD Mike Lynch joins twitter
#10: Hot Dog and Jesus break blog silence
#9: 2011-12 Schedule released
#8: Class of 2016 shaping up
#7: Touted frosh join the team
#6: BU selected Pre-Season #1
#5: JOB has foot surgery
#4: John Holland graduates
#3: BU keeps it close with Kansas
#2: Pat Chambers leaves
#1: Joe Jones enters

All this leading up to the much anticipated kickoff to the season this Friday against the odious Huskies of Northeastern. Come with me!

#16 over #1: Why Can't it Happen?

2011-03-18T17:12:00.000-04:00

(photo courtesy BU Athletics)

This is the end - it all culminates today against the University of Kansas (yet they use the initials KU... wtf?). There will be no more games for BU after today.

At least, that's what we're told. The 16 seeds are 0-105 all time against the 1 seeds. All the articles about Kansas are talking about their path to the Final Four now that Louisville and Vanderbilt have been knocked off. And why shouldn't they? The first game for the 1 seeds are barely worth playing.

However, they do they play them. This is where the all the usual phrases come in, like the game isn't played on paper. Steve Buckley wrote a nice piece for the Boston Herald today on this very same subject - read it.

I'm proud to report that I'm one of the 0.9% of people who picked BU to beat Kansas in my bracket (which was the highest percentage out of all the 16 seeds, by the way). Do I really think they'll win? No, I don't.

But, a #16 has to defeat a #1 someday, right? Why couldn't it be our Terriers? It's a game - both teams play by the same set of rules. Anything can happen. If Darryl has one of his random games where he goes off for 30, and John can't miss and gets to the line, and Griff hits all his threes, and Pat Hazel doesnt get into foul trouble... who knows.

Unlikely but I'll be cheering like hell for Johnny H and the Terriers to pull off the impossible just the same. And America will be right there behind us.

Jayhawk Squawks Back

2011-03-18T13:58:00.003-04:00

For this big occasion, I thought we'd reach out to see if any Jayhawk fans can clear a few things up for us in advance of the main event. We can all learn a thing or two from people who are from so far out in the middle of nowhere that there is absolutely nothing to do but concentrate on their basketball team.

Lifelong KU fan JayhawkLex, who "literally bleeeeeeeeeds crimson and blue," was nice enough to answer the call with some friendly trash talk.

BU Hoops Blog: You grew up in Lawrence and went to KU, obviously a huge Jayhawk fan. What are the coolest traditions about Kansas basketball?

JayhawkLex:
Our first coach literally invented the game.
Our opening video montage stars with Wilt Chamberlain.
Phog Allen's coaching pedigree -- Adolph Rupp, Dean Smith, and others.
The Rock Chalk Chant.
Allen Fieldhouse is literally a basketball mecca. And it gets loud as hell.
Pre-game foot fire exercise and floor dives during warm-ups
Shaking newspapers while opponents are announced and tearing them up into confetti when our players are announced.
Seniors start on senior night.
Mastering the claps to 'I'm a Jayhawk.'
The singing of -- and swaying to -- our alma mater song. Gives me goosebumps.
'Waving the wheat.'
Hating Mizzou (it literally dates back to violent raids during the Civil War).
The full and complete unity of Jayhawk Nation. We are EVERYWHERE, and we support our team members like they're family. Thomas Robinson: case-in-point.

...need more?

BU Hoops Blog: Rock Chalk Jayhawk... explain this string of seemingly nonsensical words.

JayhawkLex:
Traditional intimidation tactic :) And it rhymes.

But, in all seriousness, it actually came from a science professor in the late 1800s who wanted a chant to fire up his students. 'Rock chalk' comes from the deposits of chalk rock limestone in both western Kansas and on KU's campus (my dad is a geologist -- I know these words). The Jayhawk is a mythical beast, likewise rooted in history. (Jayhawkers were the Kansas abolitionists who fought to have Kansas entered as a free state.)

Now ask me why we hate Missouri so much :)

BU Hoops Blog: Kansas has a history of choking against BU's in the tournament (Bucknell, Bradley)... nervous?

JayhawkLex:
Nope. When was the last time a 1-seed lost to a 16-seed?

BU Hoops Blog: Predictions for the game --

JayhawkLex:

Will Kansas get to 20 before BU gets to 10?
Barely.
How close will the game be at halftime?
I'll bet you're down by 10 at half.
Who will win and by how much?
Kansas by 22.
How awesome would be if BU pulled off the shocking upset?
...do y'all even have a mascot?

Last words: Shout-out to @fakejoedooley.

Was Dorothy's Toto a Boston Terrier?

2011-03-17T19:28:00.004-04:00

We found out last Sunday night that we'd be going to Tulsa to play against the Kansas University Jayhawks. I don't know why the guys were all cheering - the Terriers got robbed with this matchup!

I suppose we're lucky that we aren't in one of the play-in games. But Kansas is definitely one of the top 2 seeds overall - they should be playing the winner of a play-in. BU was clearly the best of the 16 seeds (if not better than one of the 15 seeds), so we should have gotten the worst of the 1 seeds - that would be Pitt in Washington, DC. In essence, Kansas got screwed too because they should not have gotten the best of the 16 seeds. Of course it won't matter for Kansas because they'll steamroll whoever.

For the record, Bill Self agrees with me:

“I was surprised they were on the 16 line to be honest,” Self said. “When I was in my mind going through the bracket, I didn’t have them as one of the teams on the 16 line.”

What do we know about Kansas? I'm sure some hayseed from Kansas will come on here and tell us all about them (and how much we suck, etc). But for the time being, we just need to know about their twin towers, Marcus and Markieff Morris. Pretty unstoppable.

But little do they know, we have a secret weapon: the long-lost third twin Dom Morris! Though only a freshman, and only averaging 5.6 points per game, and like 4 inches shorter, he just needs to reach within himself for that Morris DNA - no problem.

I Will Never, Ever Get Tired of This

2011-03-16T18:07:00.003-04:00

I think I'll make this post my new homepage. And I don't really care that it takes up the entire space.

Nine Years of Waiting Ends - We're the Champs

2011-03-15T19:07:00.005-04:00

Once I knew BU was hosting the AE championship, I knew I'd be sparing no expense to be there. I was in the house in 2002 (woo-hoo!) and 2003 (barf), and nothing short of a Lohan-style ankle bracelet was going to stop me from going this time.

So off I went -- with a quick stop at T's Pub for the pre-game tailgate where a couple of PBRs calmed the nerves. Being in The Greek for this game felt like an event. It wasn't sold out, but it felt like it. The crowd was buzzing, the bands and student sections were yelling back and forth, the bright ESPN lights were gleaming off the shiny hardwood floor. It felt like primetime.

I don't think I can adequately describe the game.

The first half made me want to cry. I think we had 3 points about 12 minutes into the game - something very sad like that. It picked up a little before the end of the half, but we still trailed 30-23 when the teams went into the locker rooms.

In need of a change of scenery and luck, I moved from my very adult-like seats halfway up the side at mid-court down to the rowdy students area behind the basket (no thanks to the fun-hating security guards who tried to stop me). For a while, nothing changed - Stony Brook went out to a 15 point lead and I sunk further into a Kafka-like depression.

Then he showed up.

John Holland -- 3-time AE First Teamer, AE Rookie of the Year, AE Player of the Year, future AE Tournament Most Outstanding Player, future BU Hall of Fame member, wearer of future BU Retired Number 23 -- decided it would be a good thing if we won the game and went to the Big Dance. He reeled of 14 points before anyone else on the court scored, over the course of about 6 minutes. I hope it goes down in BU lore as "The Six Minutes." They need to be remembered.

From there, it was a tight game, and Holland kept asserting himself. The last minute of the game, he drew a foul and sank two freebies to tie it up, forced a jump ball to give BU possession, then got fouled with 2.4 seconds left and sank two more. You know what happened next.

But going back to The Six Minutes. I have rewatched this section about 70,000 times on my DVR, and I get chills every time. Does anyone know how to upload a high-quality youtube of this - at least the 3 possessions in the middle that went three-pointer/ridiculous up-and-under/steal-and-breakaway?

John Holland wasn't going to be denied his trip to the Dance, and took it upon himself to carry the team on his back. In the process, he cemented his legacy at BU.

We Goin to the 'Chip

2011-03-12T09:50:00.002-05:00

I wrote a long enjoyable blog post about the last day of the tourney on the plane just now. And then it got unceremoniously deleted. These were the highlights.

- It was a pleasure to watch Vermont lose. So many sad old people (their fans) reminded me of a nursing home.
- I praised Pat Hazel for ridiculous free throw shooting and general domination.
- Likewise, I praised Matt Griffin for his clutchness and declared his new nickname Matty Ice.
- I said I was so nervous watching BU beat Hartford that I shat out enough bricks to build the third Student Village tower.

That was the gist. So pumped for todays game against Stony Brook. The Greek will be rockin on The Deuce!

#Winning on Saturday (Duh)

2011-03-06T16:40:00.001-05:00

The details of yesterday are a bit hazy after the tailgate. To paraphrase Rick James, four loko is a hell of a drug.

We missed the Albany-Stony Brook game, but the Binghamton-Vermont and Maine-Hartford were memorable and pretty good games. We spent the non-BU games vacillating between our neutral seats in the corner rooting for upsets, the beer garden for pretty reasonable $5 beers, standing in the bathroom lines, looking for outlets to charge cell phones, and inexplicably buying America East Tournament tshirts.

Our search for matches led us to ask pretty much everyone in the AE FanFest tent for matches. Nobody smokes anymore! But we were saved by a TV technician (I think) who went and got them from his truck, leading me to drunkenly tweet, "HOT DOGS FOR EVERYONE!" For those who care, we also ended up going on a late night Mohegan Sun run, wandering around the casino in our BU jerseys looking for the craps tables. (We broke even.)

The punctuation mark on the day was the Hartford fans storming the court after their upset of... Maine. Freaking Maine?! I spoke with Kyle from Midmajoritywho was wondering afterwardhow the UHa students would top this if they got a win in the semifinals.

Which brings us to tonight's game, of course, when BU will try to prevent another court-storming and who knows, maybe burning the arena to the ground. BU took care of bidness against UNH in one of my favorite types of games: it was exciting throughout but I was never really worried about losing. BU held a single-digit lead the whole time. I haven't seen box scores but apparently JH23 led the team in scoring, which was great considering we were so worried about his health. Matt Griffin, Darryl and DJ all hit some bigtime shots in the second half.

I was really impressed with the BU fan showing - loud and fairly numerous. Props to the kids with the "Partin the Interruption" and "DJ's got me falling in love again" signs.

I talked to John Holland's pops during halftime, who said he thought his soon looked good and pretty healthy (and I respect his expert opinion). Couldn't believe how calm he is though! I feel like I'm way more worried about hoping his son makes an NCAA tourney than he is! Maybe he knows something I don't...

Tonight we take on the homestanding host Hartford Hawks. In last year's quarterfinals, we won by 41 points. They did beat us this year in this building earlier this year. But that was before we were the team we are now. I watched that game at Cornwalls in Kenmore Sq with WildBoyz, and it was the one where we had a huge lead that we let evaporate over the last 5 minutes. Something tells me the Terriers won't let that happen again.

First order of business: resume rainy tailgating.
Second order of business: go inside to root against Vermont.
Third order of business: watch BU kick some ass.

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No Match (For BU or our Tailgate)

2011-03-05T13:47:00.002-05:00

We're in the parking lot of Chase Arena in Hartford. We have an unbelievable spread laid out for our tailgate (the only damn one here at the tourney, dammit). We got brews, music, painted car, propane stove, hot dogs, all the makings of delicious egg mcmuffins... everything but one essential item: matches. KAHNNNNN!

As we scarf down our cold food, waiting to go in and check out Albany vs Stony Brook, I can't think about anything beside finding a place to pee in this parking lot. But I'm trying to think about today's BU-UNH matchup. Obviously the big variable is John Holland's ankle. If he goes, I think BU takes it easily - even if he's only 75%.

BU is a different team now than the one that lost to UNH in Durham (which was BU's last loss). We can actually play on the road now. Guys like DJ and Darryl have stepped up when John was out. The "Mildcats" are also playing like shit lately.

Dear Pat Hazel: please stuff Tyrone Conley every time he dares to drive into the lane.
Dear Dom Morris: don't be afraid to drive toward the bucket if you get it on the perimeter; we know you have the moves.
Dear Mike Terry Jr: do that offensive rebound/put-back thing you do.
Dear John Holland: please play and dominate.

OK. Need to go in and watch the end of this game. Matches never came. By the way - I still detest Vermont and their fans, but many of them walked by and were really nice. None had matches though.

Current drunk-score=7.5

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Terriers Clean Up at Awards Banquet (Not Literally, the Busboys Did That)

2011-03-05T02:07:00.002-05:00

The "BU Hoops Mobile" (according to our drivers side rear window) made it into the Nutmeg State a little after midnight. That might be late for some, but not for the nocturnal Cousin Bob, in whose home we happen to be staying. So we settled in for a Bud Heavy or 3 to catch up on family business.

Today, the America East awards were released. BU did quite well:

- DJ Irving and Dom Morris made the All-Rookie team. I actually think DJ may have earned a shot at the Rookie of the Year award, which went to Vermont's Brian Voelkel (DJ played MUCH better in the two head-to-head games), but I was happy to see both DJ and Dom recognized.
- Pat Hazel made the All-Defensive squad, a very nice honor for the league's top shot-blocker who had a really slow start to the year.
- Darryl Partin made First Team All-AE, which came as quite a shock. But his offensive number show he deserves it, and he was really solid on the defensive end too.
- And finally, and most impressively, John Holland came away with First Team All-AE and the Conference Player of the Year award. He deserved it, we all know he deserved it, and nobody should have been pretending the entire year that anyone else might have taken it. If not for Marqus Blakely, he should have earned it twice or even three times. Congrats to John on a tremendous and well-earned honor.

I cant even think of a single award BU was even slightly shafted on - DJ may have had an outside shot at ROY, but it probably ended up right. Coach Chambers would probably be the Number 2 Coach of the Year choice behind UVM's Mike Lonergan. Overall a good take by the Terriers.

And now, to get some shut-eye. Long day of drinking, tailgating, basketball watching and drinking ahead of us.

Current drunk-scale=3

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The Road to H-Town

2011-03-04T21:13:00.002-05:00

This year has sucked for BU basketball blogging. I shat the bed, the Hot Dog and Jesus folded up shop, and a few others dropped off as well. (Thank goodness for the Full Court Press.)

But that doesn't mean I can't rise like the phoenix to blog about Hartford 2011. I saw or heard every game this year, either in person, on TV at a bar, on internet video, on internet radio, or via an elaborate contraption I twice set up to record game audio when I wasn't home for the game. And frankly, what I've seen and heard has me EXTREMELY excited for single-elimination basketball this weekend.

The team, over the last month, has looked nothing short of great. John Holland took over the league. Darryl Partin helped him out. When John went down with an ankle, D.J. Irving stepped up and became an upperclassman out of thin air. The Terriers are the hottest team in the league and just beat Vermont without our best player.

We have a lot to look forward to this weekend. Watchable basketball. Beautiful, historic Hartford. Drunkenness. Hopefully a couple wins. Check back and I promise to update a few times.

Current drunk-scale=0

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JH2K

2011-02-12T18:06:00.003-05:00

He forced me to come out of semi-retirement. He's simply too good.

John Holland reached 2,000 career points a couple of games ago. Only one other player in BU history has reached that plateau, the mythical and godlike Tunji. A game after that, he passed TJ Sorrentine, Malik Rose and Speedy Claxton, all of whom are America East legends. In the case of Rose and Claxton, NBA players who I knew about way before I knew what the America East was. And Sorrentine has his own spot in college basketball lore.

He's not going to pass Tunji, and he's not going to reach the Top 5 in all-time AE scoring. But he's passing genuine conference legends. Does that make John Holland a legend?

In short, my answer is: I don't think so. He can't do it on scoring alone. The knock on JH23 his whole career has been his inability to put everyone on his back and will his team to victory in the most important games.

He's missing 2 things that would cement his place in legend:
1. A Conference Player of the Year Award - it's tough to be one of the greatest ever if you were never the greatest in any single year.
2. An NCAA Appearance - he needs to prove that he can win the big one. Vin Baker is a legend who never made the dance, but he had skills and stats that went way beyond anyone else. John needs a tourney berth to seal his legacy.

At this point, John is closer to #1 than #2. As Maine fades and Troy Barnies' case for POY fades, John is getting stronger and stronger down the stretch. If BU finishes the year in the same way they've been playing, Holland takes this award.

Getting to the Dance is the big question mark. BU is playing well now, and has the explosive capability to get past anyone in the conference. But they're also young and undisciplined at times, leading to lapses and losses to inferior teams. They need to put everything together and play their best basketball if we're to see them in the NCAA Tournament.

And that means John Holland putting the Terriers on his back and carrying them across the finish line.

What Can We Count On

2010-11-12T17:20:00.006-05:00

IT'S BACK!!!

Yes, BU basketball comes back tonight. But there is an air of unfamiliarity about the team this year. For the first time in 5 years, Tyler Morris won't be hustling down the court - he was as close to being the "rock" of BU basketball as you can get. You could always count on Tyler being there and giving it all, from his Rookie of the Year to his outstanding performance in the CBI to finish his career.

No, we won't have Tyler to serve as our rock this year. We won't have the tumultous presence of Corey Lowe - the will he or won't he transfer rumors, the conflicts with coaches, the nagging injuries. Sure you couldn't "count" on Corey, but you felt better knowing the erstwhile Big East point guard was there. We can't count on the gritty determination and potential of a Carlos Strong coming off the bench, the steadiness of a Scott Brittain in the middle, the character of a Tunde Agboola, the confusion that was Brendan Sullivan, the adorableness of a Mike Schulze.

Right now, we can only count on one man, one force: John Holland.

This team will go as far as JH23 can take them. He's undoubtedly the best player in the America East. Coach Chambers declined to make him a team captain (opting instead for 2 guys who have never suited up!) because he didn't want to give John any additional pressure on top of the load he is going to have to carry. Is he up for the challenge?

We don't really know what he'll have in terms of help yet. Jake is a good player but one peg lower. Pelage is another peg below that. But that's it! Will Griffin, Partin and most importantly Pat Hazel be able to help? I have no idea. Will some of freshmen step up? We now have a DJ and a Malik -- great basketball names -- so that bodes well. Early reviews on Travis Robinson and Dom Morris are promising.

Tonight we see if we can turn some of that promise into performance. Northeastern is a team in a remarkably similar situation. Like BU, they have only 3 upperclassmen who were there last year, and a ton of underclassmen. Two things BU has in their favor:

1) They didn't lose their best player. NU did (Matt Janning).
2) They don't go to Northeastern (always a plus)

BU has won the last 2 crosstown matchups in a row. I think this will be a close game, like last year's overtime win at Case, but extremely sloppy due to two inexperienced teams.

Guys, we NEED this win. I hate Northeastern. Do us fans a solid and start this season off with a win.

WILL BU WIN TONIGHT?
Magic 8-Ball sez:

The Weight of Great Expectations

2010-11-11T13:52:00.001-05:00

Every season, we judge our team in two ways: the level of success on the court (number of wins, how far they get in the postseason, etc) and how that success measures up against our expectations. We set those expectations right about now - the weeks leading up to the season.

But in the case of BU, many times those expectations are made for us. For the 4th straight year, we've been picked first in the league. A Marqus Blakely-led Vermont team was never picked first? Three years ago, we were coming off a 6th place finish with a bunch of sophomores, and picked first?

Yet we haven't come in first since 2003-04, and so according to the expectations, BU has been a failure.

This year might be the most undeserved #1 pick yet! We lost 9 seniors, and there are 3 guys remaining on our team who have suited up for BU. Four other guys averaged less than 5ppg at their previous schools. And of course 7 straight-off-the-boat freshmen.

There wasn't another AE team that looks better on paper than this??

The reviews from Monday's Scarlet vs. White scrimmage were underwhelming. Not surprising for a pre-season exhibition. The Terriers are going to take quite a while to learn and gel, and the out-of-conference schedule is gonna tough sleddin for the Chambers Gang too. If right now we're the best the America East has to offer, they can write us into play-in game right now!!

Now this all isn't to say that this year's Terriers can't win the conference or be very good. But setting those kind of expectations on this squad is unfair.

BU Basketball Already 0-1

2010-11-03T23:39:00.008-04:00

You probably didn't notice, but BU men's basketball suffered its first loss of the season last night.

I didn't either, at first. But this loss didn't happen in a sports arena, it happened in the political arena. Imagine my surprise when I found out that Alexi Giannoulias, the Democrat running for Senator of Illinois, used to play basketball for Boston University!

National Journal says:

"Giannoulias was a star point guard—he was known for a killer 3-point shot—on the basketball team. When he graduated, he hoped to go to an Ivy League school, but decided to stay close to home when his mother was diagnosed with cancer, attending the University of Chicago in Hyde Park, where he led the basketball team in scoring. After his mother’s recovery, he transferred to Boston University, which had a better basketball program. In his junior year, the team won their conference championship and played in the NCAA’s March Madness tournament. When at home for breaks, he continued to play pickup games in Hyde Park, near his old campus. There, he befriended local politicians, including Obama, then a state senator, as well as current Secretary of Education Arne Duncan."

A quick look into Giannoulias' stats here at Case Gym show that he was no Tunji Awojobi during his days on Comm Ave:

Season GP MPG PPG FG% 3FG% FT% APG RPG BPG SPG
1997-98 13 3.5 1.2 41.7 40.0 100.0 0.2 0.3 0.0 0.2
1996-97 7 1. 7 0.3 20.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.3 0.0 0.0

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Career 20 2.9 0.9 35.2 40.0 100.0 0.1 0.3 0.0 0.1

Yes, he was basically a deep bench player, maybe even a walk-on. But he's the only Terrier to almost be in charge of 13 million people and one of only two who are pals with President Obama.

As Illinois State Treasurer, he had a great chance to take the Senate seat in the Land of Lincoln. But with the Republican wave washing over the nation, the former Terrier lost to Republican Mark Kirk by 48% to 46% -- still a pretty good showing!

So here's the major question:

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

Obligatory Summer Post

2010-08-13T13:08:00.000-04:00

It's something of an annual tradition here at BU Hoops Blog where we write up until the night before the last game of the season, then we lose and then it's radio silence right through to next season -- no mention of how the season ended or why we lost the last game or even a recap of the past 5 months. Usually we're just too depressed from a conference tourney gone wrong, which, when combined with laziness, is a deadly cocktail.

This year we took it a step further. Not only did we refuse to write about that tear-inducing loss to the Catmounters on ESPN2, but we didn't even mention BU's barnstorming tour through the College Basketball Invitational. A blowout of the PAC-10/12's Oregon State Beavers, a home-court overtime win over Morehead St and a good showing against VCU in the semis were not enough to get our carcasses off the couch onto the blog (though we of course watched all those games intently). And it was all punctuated by Corey Lowe's do-si-do with a pro agent, a story ripped from the headlines at USC or Memphis or Kentucky.

However, like the on-court Terriers, we feel like we had a great season. The trip in November to cover the Puerto Rico Tip-Off was the experience of a lifetime and a blogventure unlikely to be topped for the duration of this website.

Next year holds a lot of promise. Though not the exotic San Juan, I think we can count on a trip for this blog to the Preseason NIT in Philly. The schedules are trickling out and we have reams of untested freshman to hype up and to nickname. We have Hartford 2011 to look forward to. And of course, as dictated by tradition, we have bombastic predictions of vast improvement and impact relating to the skills of one Jeffrey Pelage.

Let this be our emergence from the shadows. We won't be posting every day of course, but once every week or two should be enough to whet everyone's appetite for the coming season.

With that...Vermont sucks. Talk to you soon.

March 15, 2003

2010-03-12T18:29:00.000-05:00

That was the last day BU was in an America East final. At the end of that game, which was won on a last-second shot by some frosted-hair pansy on Vermont, I stood in the front row of Case Gymnasium and stared motionless for about 10 minutes out at the court, where the Catmounters reveled with a few hundred of their fans. On our floor.

That's a terrible feeling. Tomorrow, it's time to return the favor.

If you're watching ESPN 2 tomorrow at about 1:55pm ET, I'll be the one dancing on Vermont's floor, possibly taking a dump on the Catamount's mouth at center court.

PAYBACK!!!

Hartford 2010: Glowing Reviews

2010-03-11T16:57:00.004-05:00

Sunday
(see the first part of the weekend)

Fresh of the high of going to sleep a few benjamins richer, we awoke for another round of America East Specials. Our original plan was to get back to the arena by 11am to see the BU women play their semifinal game, however we could not get off our lazy butts in time... sorry ladies.

Let me say something: Of course I have nothing against women's basketball. I was quite the BU women's fan back in school. I don't even mind having the men's and women's tournament together, since I'm sure it saves everyone money. But not holding the men's semifinals until Sunday evening is insane. The combined format should preserve everything that was great about the men's tournament from years past.

Everyone in the conference in driving some major distance to get to the tournament. This year, half of our party couldn't wait for BU's 5pm game - which meant they drove 6 hours each way for 1 game. Taking away the Stony Brook Memorial Invitational Play-In Game on Friday night was bad enough... making the semifinals too late for many fans is unforgivable. Vermont fans had to drive 3.5 hours after their game ended at 10pm... good thing we don't have to worry about Maine ever making a semifinal!

America East: Please make this change for next year's tournament.

Back to this year's tournament. We had plenty of time to kill before our Sunday evening (I still can't believe that) game. There were brochures at the tournament's FanFest for something called Monster Mini-Golf that seemed interesting enough to waste a few hours on. Turns out it's an indoor arcade which is totally dark except for fluorescent things everywhere. It was kind of fun to play skee-ball and air hockey under black lights, but the real fun was on the putt-putt course. It actually looked really cool.

Finally, the time came to head back to watch BU - of course, not before more tailgating, more beer/Sparks, and more free Cabot cheese.

We were playing Stony Brook of course, the #1 seed that had beaten us soundly twice this season. That, combined with the fact that their cheering section was about 5x ours, meant we were going to have to be super loud. That worked for about a minute when the supposed "best player in the league" Muhammed El-Amin hit three straight 3-pointers to begin the game. The Terriers didn't lose hope though, as they quickly caught up, then ended the half on a ferocious 15-point run to end the half.

Play of the game: Towards the end of this run, the shot clock was running out and Corey had the ball near halfcourt. Instead of running toward the hoop, Corey just launched a 35-footer (no exaggeration) then found the hoop and the BU fans went apoplectic. That shot takes some large balls and was a huge momentum booster. The fans, the coaches, the bench and the players were pumped up to 11.

Halftime came and went, and then some of the air came out of everyone. Stony Brook immediately went on a 13-0 run, and we didn't score for over 5 minutes.

(Tangent: Dear BU Pep Band, can we stop the slow clap at the beginning of each half? Please? Nobody else joins in. And it gets real embarrassing/frustrating/annoying when it has to go on for 10 minutes including time-outs. Worse, it prevents anyone from starting any different cheers, specifically faster-paced ones that may be helpful in boosting energy in the fans and players, like D-FENSE. Can we maybe put a 2-minute time limit on it? Or at the very least end it after the first media time-out? PLEASE end this "tradition." Love, BU Hoops Blog.)

After we finally scored and the band mercifully stopped slow-clapping, the teams traded leads over the rest of the half. BU kept stalling though, and that's when Pat Chambers took matters into his own hands. He says he wasn't "trying" to get a Technical (wink, wink), but he got one anyway with about 6 mins left. The ensuing free throws left Stony Brook with a 53-48 lead. It fired everyone up though, and from then on it was BU making steals, getting rebounds and putbacks, making free throws and Corey with another big-time 3-pointer to take the lead.

BU won the game with defense. The "best player in the conference" disappeared down the stretch, and actually contributed 8 of SBU's 19 turnovers. And despite the non-stop trash talking and shoving by Tommy Brenton and Chris Martin, the Terriers kept their cool.

As the final seconds ticked down, the team started going crazy on the court and some of the fans came down to join. This group of seniors, which had never made it to the final game of the America East season, wasn't ready to be done yet.

Hartford 2010: Rolling 7's and 11's All Weekend

2010-03-10T18:26:00.005-05:00

I've attended the quarterfinals and semifinals of 9 America East tournaments in a row. Not since the second one have I come home feeling happy.

Of course that streak stopped this year when we demolished the host team Hartford 87-46 and then upset the top-seed Stony Brook 70-63 in a tense and amazing game. Corey Lowe looked like the player we always thought he might be, scoring 26 in the first game and 24 in the second, while contributing great defense and being a floor leader. He was the unquestioned MVP of the first two rounds of the tournament. Now, we have a date with the Catmounters for a trip to the Dance.

So how did it all go down? You really should have been there to see for yourself. But if you weren't...

Friday

Due to late starts from work, the weekend got off to a rough start. Traffic and a 6+ hour drive from DC to CT will put anyone in a bad mood, even those embarking on a hoops pilgrimmage. Sadly, but somewhat fortunately for our situation, the Binghamton situation and the combined men's and women's tournament at the same location meant we didn't have to get up there in time for the Stony Brook Memorial Play-In Game. We were sapped by the time we got to CT at 1:30am, so we called it a night so we could be at full strength the next day.

Saturday

Breakfast was delicious at the lakehouse courtesy of our amazing hosts. Of course, we all had the America East Special - two eggs over easy with cheese plus bacon and a sliced bagel.

We got to UH's Parking Lot N early to begin the annual tailgate. I wonder why nobody else tailgates at the America East Tournament. The weather was gorgeous and the Hartford parking cops were very cool in casting a blind eye toward the Miller Lites. Last year, the Albany Times-Union asked us about it:

A few cars over, recent Boston University alumni Chip Weiskotten and Mark Bassotti, natives now living in Washington, D.C., had set up shop with a BU flag, a grill and a crockpot filled with chili.

Both were such fervent basketball fans that, when they arrived back home this weekend, their respective moms had cut out various newspaper clippings on the championships for them to read.

"I'll root for Albany," Bassotti said, "unless they're playing B.U."

With the car painted with "Go BU" slogans and AC/DC blaring from the speakers, we let the sweet aura of Miller overtake us. We chatted with whichever Vermont fans wanted to come over and say hi. And the folks from Cabot Cheese loved us because we chanted, "Cheddar! Cheddar!" every time we saw them. And boy did they deliver.

Eventually, we did get inside to watch some basketball. We saw Stony Brook TCB against last place Albany. Finally, it was show-time and BU took the floor against Hartford. Unfortunately, Hartford never really seemed to take the floor against BU. This was absolute annihilation.

Poor Hartford - the hometown fans never got a chance to cheer for much this weekend, other than their women's team. J.O.B. and Corey shone brightest for BU, with 28 and 26 points. We happily went off to find some dinner downtown and were delighted to find some nice microbrew at City Steam Brewery.

We did end up going back to the arena for about half of the other two games... but they left a bit to be desired. Neither was close, and Maine (who we wanted to win due to Maine being the home state of the lady) was clearly going to lose. Plus, we wanted to check out Mohegan Sun.

The Sun was farther away than anticipated. We got there sometime around midnight. But we finally made it and were determined to play a few rounds at the craps table before we had to leave. We wanted to teach Honorary BU Alum Britt the basics of craps, so four of us put in $20 each and decided to play until the first shooter crapped out. Shouldn't take too long, right?

Cut to 45 minutes later, and the same dude is still freaking shooting! This guy couldn't miss -- a lot like BU earlier in the day against Hartford! Finally, he rolls a 7 and craps out. So we leave the table and drive home at 1:30... a combined $1,000 richer!!!

As someone mentioned on our way out, "I think this might be BU's weekend..."

Sunday - To be continued...

My 2010 Tourney Predictions: Hey, I'm an optimist

2010-03-05T17:21:00.004-05:00

I'm about to leave for Hartford 2010 in literally 5 minutes. I thought I'd post my predictions here since I'm not sure when I'll get online next - I'll try to post a vid or two from Chase though.

I'm hoping the High Roller can weigh in with some fearless prognostications from the left coast.

John Holland should be AE POY

2010-03-05T11:20:00.004-05:00

There, I said it. I know I'm the only one who thinks so. But John Holland's importance to BU's program cannot be understated.

John's numbers speak for themselves. He leads the team in points, rebounds and minutes per game. He's the first Terrier to ever lead the America East in scoring with 19.8 points per game. His rebounding numbers are solid at 6.2 per game, good enough for 8th in the conference. He has an innate ability to get to the free throw line, where he is surprisingly amazing: 84.6%, best in the conference among players with significant minutes. He's the last BU player since Tunji Awojobi to score 500 points in consecutive seasons... and this year, he has a chance for 600. His field goal percentage is 47.1%, excellent for a guy who shoots from everywhere on the floor. His defense is better and better every year, and he averages 1.6 steals per game which is 4th in the conference.

Beyond the numbers, John possesses intangibles that make BU a winning team with a shot to go far in the postseason. He's the first to dive on the floor after a loose ball. He's as intense as they come during the game, but loose as a goose and a helluva nice guy off the court. After hearing former Coach Wolff talk about how John needed to step up his intensity in practices the last two years, all reports point to John responding to the call this year in practice.

I'm not here to compare John to Marqus Blakely, whom I know is a monster and has his usual monster season. All I know is that John Holland is deserving of the honor of America East Player of the Year.

For shits and giggles, here are the rest of my picks:

AE Player of the Year: John Holland, BU

AE Defensive Player of the Year: Marqus Blakely, Vermont (I'll throw him a bone here)

AE First Team All-Conference:

John Holland, BU
Marqus Blakely, Vermont

Joe Zeglinski, Hartford

Greer Wright, Binghamton

Tommy Brenton, Stony Brook

AE Second Team All-Conference:

Muhammad El-Amin, Stony Brook

Gerald McLemore, Maine

Maurice Joseph, Vermont

Corey Lowe, BU

Jake O'Brien, BU

AE Third Team All-Conference:

Bryan Dougher, Stony Brook

Alvin Abreu, New Hampshire

Carlos Strong, BU

Chris De La Rosa, UMBC

Evan Fjeld, Vermont

AE Coach of the Year: Ted Woodward, Maine

AE Rookie of the Year: Ferg Myrick, New Hampshire

AE All-Rookie Team:

Ferg Myrick, New Hampshire

Murphy Burnatowski, Maine

Dylan Talley, Binghamton

Marcus Rouse, Stony Brook

Mike Black, Albany

Broadus Interruptus: Bing Pulls Out

2010-03-04T00:25:00.003-05:00

We're feeling pretty confident, pretty happy about our seeding situation and playing Binghamton this coming weekend at the tournament - after all, we just beat them by 40 points. But then....

...Binghamton finds a new way to embarrass itself. Just days before the tournament is set to begin, and after playing the entire regular season, they decide to sit out the tournament. WTF.

This is fine if Binghamton had finished 9th as expected. But they finished 5th, so it affects every single matchup this weekend! It eliminates the (Formerly) Stony Brook Invitational Play-In Game completely - am I getting a refund for the ticket package I bought that includes this game? Of course not.

The biggest swings of fortune happen to the BU and Vermont squads. Vermont should be playing #7 New Hampshire, a decent team that could get hot - instead, after Bing pulled their French military maneuver they'll play UMBC, the most hapless bunch of haps that ever happed. Meanwhile, instead of facing the team we just beat by 40, we play the team we lucked into a last second win over - and oh yeah, they happen to be the tournament's host team.

It's unfortunate, and I think the decision (whoever's it was - the league, the school, the state...) was wrong, especially for the players who stuck with the program. And BU came out on the bad end of it.

But at the end of the day, WE WILL PLAY WHOEVER STEPS ONTO THE COURT AT 2:30 ACROSS FROM US, dammit! We still have to win 3 games to survive.

On to the Little Dance

2010-03-01T16:59:00.003-05:00

With a resounding 76-56 thumping of Maine, the Terriers ended the 2009-10 season on a high note. That makes 5 out of 6 wins in February, the only loss coming in the final seconds against Vermont. What made this win more notable than the others is that it was the first of the year over a top-3 opponent. That is a nice hump to get over, and such a convincing win gives hope going into the tournament.

We finish at 17-12 and 11-5 in the America East Conference, which is good for 4th place. How does that compare with the season that got Dennis Wolff fired last year? Well, last year we were 17-12 and 11-5 in the conference, which was good for 3rd place. Scott Brittain was out this year, but Tyler Morris and Carlos Strong missed most of last year, and this year the guys are a year more experienced.

So on the surface, it doesn't look like the coaching change made any tangible year over year difference. However, DWolff wasn't fired for going 17-12 or 11-5. He was fired for going 0-1.

Will Coach Pat Chambers make his mark on this portion of the record? If that's how we judged Wolff, it's only fair we judge Chambers by the same standards. I think it's fair to say that Chambers will be feeling some heavy expections from Mike Lynch et al as he heads to his first America East tournament.

So who do we play? Well right now, it's uncertain. We are supposed to play Binghamton, who finished 5th place despite some crazy obstacles. But one more obstacle may be put Bing's way, namely a voluntary or involuntary absence from this year's tournament in Hartford. NY Times reporter Pete Thamel tweeted that "The America East and Binghamton are deciding if Bearcats should play in conference tournament."

This would be bullshit for us, especially since we dominated Binghamton by 40 last week, and it would leave us with the host team Hartford. Meanwhile, Vermont would move from getting a tough UNH team to getting the hapless UMBC Retrievers. This may all be resolved by the time you read this post, so no use getting worked up about it now. I am sure that Chambers & Co. are doing everything they can to prepare the Terriers for whichever team shows up at 2:30 on Saturday.

More on the tournament to come this week.

A Boost for Our Bench Scoring: The Maine Preview

2010-02-27T13:49:00.004-05:00

I am currently watching Georgetown-Notre Dame on CBS, and they flashed a stat onscreen that caught my eye. It said that Georgetown is ranked #345 out of 347 D-I schools in bench scoring with 17 points per game, and Notre Dame is last in the nation at #347 out of 347 with 13.6 bench points per game.

I immediately called bullshit. As a Terrier fan, I know that absolutely NOBODY has worse bench production than us.

Basketball State doesn't show bench scoring, so I had to add this up myself. All told, even including 5 or 6 games at the beginning when John Holland was coming off the bench, BU non-starters only scored 290 points in 28 games - an average of 10.3 points per game. So SUCK IT CBS, I had no idea where you got that stat from. I'd love to know what they were talking about.

Things could change today, as it's Senior Day and all our senior bench guys will start, meaning we will have Jake O'Brien and John Holland coming off the bench. Here's how I see our starting lineup:

G Mike Schulze
G Tunde Agboola
F Sherrod Smith
F Valdas Sirutis
F Brendan Sullivan

Anything else would be a travesty. Lowe, Strong and Morris don't need to start this game. All 5 of those bench guys should get at least 4 minutes, since this game is essentially meaningless. It would be really awesome if Scott Brittain could suit up for this one too, but I don't see it happening.

So let's have these guys go out and win this Senior Day for Scott.

John Holland should be AE Player of the Year

2010-02-26T16:55:00.004-05:00

While famously lampooned in Wayne's World, our trip to Delaware wasn't nearly as lame as it might sound.

(And with that, I just set the single-season record for Wayne's World references - it's not even in my Top 20 movies either!)

We got to see the Terriers put on a hell of a win in their Bracketbuster game, bringing our career BB record to 3-0. We got to beat a team that had beaten us two years in a row. We got a win against the annoying Colonial conference. We defeated a team that had bolted the America East less than a decade ago.

All these things were good, but none matched the sensational John Holland.

After JH23 scored 20 in the first half, we were wondering if he'd make it to 40. He started out on a tear in the second half, so from then on we were just rooting for him to get the ball. He was making mid-range jumpers, put-backs, closely guarded threes... you name it. With 39 points, he drove to the hoop and got fouled, then this happened:

We thought this was a big deal at the time since we were rooting for it all game. His final basket came with a few seconds left in the game as the shot clock was winding down. The defender was challenging John to beat him for a meaningless bucket; John took the bait and burned him with a sweet drive to the bucket.

43 points!!! Are you kidding me?! Easily the greatest single-game effort I've seen by a BU player. After the game, the PA announcer said it was the highest point total in the history of Delaware's Bob Carpenter Center.

Other things:

BU had a great road crowd again, thanks to the proximity to the Chambers clan's home base in Philly.
Tyler Morris must have been sick - he only went in the game for 3-4 mins at a time, looked paler than Conan O'Brien and walked over to the giant garbage can to spit several times. If he had puked on the court, this would have topped the 43 point game. You know the flipcam was ready.
After the game, we took a driving tour of Wilmington, DE, because... why the hell not? Frankly it wasn't that exciting besides seeing a couple cool old buildings. But the tour ended with a brewpub called Iron Mill Brewery which was mighty fine - I recommend their homemade Raspberry Wheat.

My Terrier Pet Peeve: The Delaware Preview

2010-02-20T10:57:00.003-05:00

A couple things. First, that Binghamton game was the greatest. It seemed like Every Single Thing went right for the Terriers. Shots were falling, and we played amazing defense. Tyler, John, Jake and Carlos all shined. It's true that Binghamton was finishing a 4 game road trip, but it's still a team that almost beat us a month earlier. A 42 point win is a 42 in though. In the seniors' last game ever at Agganis, they finally proved once and for all that they could score there. Just a joy to watch.

Now, with only one more conference game left, we're locked into the #3 or #4 seed for the tournament. The #3 is wayyyyy better because we wouldn't have to play Stony Brook in the semifinals. So we have to root for Maine to lose one of their next 2 games, and then beat them in our last game. BOOOOOOO to Maine.

Now, I've got to get something off my chest. I love the Terriers, and they play a fun brand of basketball this year. But one thing really sticks in my craw: when the other team makes a bucket, it takes forever to get the ball inbounds. I'm not talking about if the other team is guarding us, it's just that it seems like the guy who's supposed to inbound it seems to forget he's has to inbound and is already running down the court. Then the point guard has to call someone back to inbound it.

I know, it doesn't really matter, but I hate it! It interrupts the flow of the game for me. Look for it next time you watch the Terriers. So note to the inbounders: Don't run down the court and forget to inbound!!

About today: it's BRACKETBUSTER SATURDAY! Or fake bracketbuster Saturday. Instead of a crappy MAAC team we got a crappy CAA team. But it's cool because Delaware is within driving distance for me. So I'll be among a small group of visiting Terrier fans today.

This game, in reality, doesn't really matter at all. The big one is next week. But we can at least use it to keep our momentum going. We're playing well now, we just need to continue that into the tournament.

Pleasure Reading: The Binghamton Preview

2010-02-17T18:44:00.004-05:00

For your reading pleasure:

A Cinderella Emerged, Then Quickly Lost Its Way New York Times
Report Faults Binghamton's Leaders in Scandal New York Times
Binghamton's Scandal New York Times
Report: Weak oversight of Binghamton athletics The Associated Press
BU an embarrassment Press & Sun-Bulletin
Binghamton athletics sharply criticized in investigative report USA Today
Hoop nightmares: Big-time basketball dreams brought Binghamton shame, not fame New York Daily News
BU gets failing grade Press & Sun-Bulletin
Basketball program spun out of control at Binghamton University Elmira Star-Gazette
Binghamton Hoops' Dirty Laundry Gets Aired Out Sporting News
Binghamton slammed in SUNY report Albany Times Union
SUNY should focus on books not balls Troy Record
Report slams BU for putting athletics ahead of academics News 10 Now
To Dance, Binghamton Basketball Sold its Soul The Big Lead
Skadden's Judith Kaye Slams Binghamton Hoops Program The Am Law Daily
The entry titled "A cautionary tale for colleges with big sports dreams." Austin American-Statesman
Foul on Binghamton All Over Albany
SUNY Binghamton athletics under fire Buffalo Business First
Bad News Binghamton Inside Higher Ed
Binghamton University academic reputation "compromised" by scandal Elmira Star-Gazette

And finally,
The Ugly Truth Binghamton University Pipe Dream

Enjoy the game.

Heartbreak...

2010-02-13T12:48:00.004-05:00

When they left the court, it really looked like the Terriers knew how much that game against Vermont could have meant.

BU played one of their best games of the season, but unfortunately so did the Catmounters.

We stormed back from big deficits to get back into the game, thanks to some huge plays from John Holland and Carlos Strong. Sometime late in the second half, I told myself, "No matter who wins, this is a fantastic college basketball game." With a minute left, we led by 4 and Tyler (who averages 90% at the line) was shooting a free throw. Fast forward to 9 seconds left, and we're down 1. With a chance to win the game, Corey Lowe dribbled the ball off his foot, and the game was over.

Corey was in tears coming off the court, but I don't blame him for the loss. He just made a mistake.

I'm hoping the team can take the Vermont game and use it as motivation for the America East tournament. They've proven they can play with, if not beat, every team in the conference.

To Be the Best You Gotta Beat the Best: The Vermont Preview

2010-02-09T18:06:00.003-05:00

Tonight is a huge game for our Terriers. The last two wins... they were nice. It's important to take out the UNH's and the Albany's that are near the bottom of the conference.

But tonight, Vermont comes to town. This is a different story, because BU is 0-4 against the best 3 teams (Vermont, Maine, Stony Brook).

If we fail to pick off any of these teams, we're going to be stuck finishing in the middle of the pack. Depending on how we do over these last 4 games, we end the season as high as #2 or as low as #5.

Vermont killed us in the first matchup this year. We kept Blakely under wraps, but the rest of their guys were hitting every shot they took. Luckily, we are MONEY at The Greek lately. Five of the last six games there have been wins.

Should be a great game - and it's on TV! That means I'm braving the snow to make it to the bar! Go Terriers!

Last Road Game: The Albany Preview

2010-02-06T17:10:00.004-05:00

BU athletics marketing came up with the perfect giveaway for Thursday's game against UNH - camouflage shirts. They were a huge hit... when I watched on TV I could hardly see any fans in the stands.

Ba-dum-ching.

BU gave the fans who were there reason to cheer. After a lackluster first half, we dominated the Wildcats in the second. Our shots were falling and theirs weren't, simple as that. Tyler had his first great game back from his injury, John and Jake both shined and Corey had 7 assists to 1 turnover.

Some good trends continued in this game:

UNH still hasn't beaten us in Boston since 1994
BU has won 5 out of its last 6 games in The Greek

Tonight we will play in Albany. Despite their last place standing, they will put our crowd to shame, which is kind of depressing. Still, I think we kick some more ass tonight and put some more pressure on the teams ahead of us not to screw up.

Get Excited: The New Hampshire Preview

2010-02-04T16:12:00.004-05:00

New Hampshire Wildcats basketball, coming to an Agganis Arena near you... CAN YOU FEEL THE EXCITEMENT??

I know part of the plan to build excitement around the BU basketball team was to hold more games in The Greek, but I'm not sure that's working anymore. We barely had 1,000 for the Albany game, and they were giving away JERSEYS! Methinks the luster of having normal games in Agganis (as a gimmick to get more people to games) may be wearing off.

When it comes down to it, a game against UNH just isn't exciting to the normal student, even if it's at The Greek. That's because it's not so much of a big event anymore, especially when we're playing higher-profile opponents like Vermont and GW there this year.

My friends, prepare for the first sub-1,000 Agganis crowd ever (aside from an ill-fated Creed performance). I don't think the camou tshirts are going to save us, cool as they may be.

And this sucks, because we're finally getting good at playing there. Last time out, the Terriers sank a school-record 16 3-pointers (6 from Los!) en route to demolishing Albany. We have a winning record there this year.

When we played UNH earlier this year, we played OK but were lucky to escape with a win when their best player that day, Tyrone Conley, got hurt in the second half. UNH has never played in The Greek, so I'm hoping they suffer whatever befell the Terriers the first 5 years they played there. The Wildcats do not always set the nets on fire anyway, so that's my prediction for the game: UNH has shooting woes, BU wins by 10.

Shock! BU will not play MAAC Bracketbuster

2010-02-01T15:07:00.003-05:00

OMG.

Yes it's still boring, but amazingly BU will NOT play a crappy MAAC team in this year's Bracketbuster!! We get to travel to Delaware instead (Hi... I'm in Delaware....).

After catching St. Peter's and Iona, we finally get someone else. And that someone else is a team we have played the last two years in a row, but whatever!

BU will attempt to extend its 2-0 all-time record in Bracketbuster games against a team that is actually pretty crappy. Delaware is sitting near the basement of the Colonial at 6-16 (2-9 in conference) and a lovely RPI of 205. In terms of common opponents, UD got beat by Northeastern and Bucknell, both of whom lost to BU, but defeated Vermont who has beaten BU.

In any case, this is a game that I could conceivable go to, so I'm happy. And it's a possible win over the CAA, always a good thing. What does everyone else think?

...And now back to 5th place

2010-02-01T11:45:00.004-05:00

The only good thing to come out of Saturday's Stony Brook game was that we unexpectedly got two of our injured Terriers back in uniform, Tyler Morris and Brendan Sullivan. It didn't help us on the court, where we looked pretty awful.

The Fighting Popoko's got out to a 13-0 start and never looked back. I don't think we got closer than 6 or 7 for the rest of the game. So frustrating to watch. Each of their guys took turns making shots they shouldn't be making.

On our side, John Holland had one of his worst games he's ever had, and Corey wasn't pretty either. Our three turnovers to start the game (leaving us without a shot 3 minutes into the game) really set the tone.

So my 6-2 prediction for the second half... not looking too pretty right now. We'd have to win our final 6 to make that happen. We're behind freakin Binghamton, and tied in the loss column with Hartford. Awful.

The only silver lining is that 5 of our last 6 are at home. I think we can win 5 of those 6 (counting Vermont at home as the loss), but of course nothing is guaranteed with this league and this team. One thing's for sure though, you can count us out of the race for the top seed -- I don't see Stony Brook losing 3 more games this year. That team is legit. I think #3 is probably our ceiling, though #4 more likely.

More depressing news is likely coming this afternoon when the Bracketbusters matchups are announced. Once again, we're not good enough to get a high-profile TV game (or even a medium-profile ESPN360 game!). There is little doubt that with our mediocre fortunes this year we'll be saddled with another terrible MAAC team. The only suspense left is which it will be.

I think we can rule out:
Iona (played them this year)
Marist (played them this year)
St. Peter's (previous Bracketbuster)
Manhattan (previous Bracketbuster)
Siena (too good and will get a TV game)
Fairfield (not a hosting team)
Niagara (not a hosting team)
Rider (not a hosting team)

This leaves the following possible schools:
Loyola
Canisius

Check back later to see which one of these fun opponents awaits.

Back in Third Again: The Stony Brook Preview

2010-01-30T18:07:00.003-05:00

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

2010-01-27T17:47:00.005-05:00

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

2010-01-23T19:43:00.004-05:00

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

2010-01-19T17:13:00.006-05:00

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

2010-01-17T12:20:00.004-05:00

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

2010-01-14T16:35:00.003-05:00

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

2010-01-12T16:40:00.004-05:00

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

2010-01-11T20:07:00.003-05:00

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

2010-01-09T11:02:00.006-05:00

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

2010-01-07T16:23:00.003-05:00

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?

2010-01-04T11:26:00.004-05:00

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

2010-01-02T11:22:00.003-05:00

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

2010-01-02T01:52:00.004-05:00

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.

House of Pain: The Dayton Preview

2009-12-29T18:12:00.005-05:00

The Terriers walk into their 11th and final non-conference game tonight on a three-game winning streak (a first!) and missing another body on their ever-shortening bench (sadly, not a first).

Against Mount St. Mary's, BU was shooting a hot rock at 56 percent. The main beneficiaries were John Holland, who threw down some of his patented slams, and Jake O'Brien, who earned the America East Player of the Week for the effort. Not to be overlooked were Corey Lowe's 9 assists. To me and many around us, though, the story of the game was the ridiculously quick whistles of the zebras. Both teams were called for fouls on seemingly every possession, which prevented the game from having any sort of flow at all. Refs, let 'em play!

But during the game, I noticed that BJ Bailey, our lone freshman, was not among the few in uniform on the bench nor the many in suits on the bench. His departure from the team was confirmed by some BU folks at halftime.

The highlight of the game was clearly this guy's hair:

Tonight, we catch Dayton, a team picked first in the Atlantic 14 conference and one that we saw play in Puerto Rico. They were damn good, despite the fact that they lost 2 games just like we did. Thing is, they beat Georgia Tech (which ended up pasting us in our last game). At least both teams' losses to K-State were comparable. They have one young man in particular, Chris Wright, who is quite good at basketball.

Even more impressive than Dayton's basketball players are its basketball fans. They were the biggest group of fans in San Juan, and I thought they were loud there; I can't imagine what it'll be like inside University of Dayton Arena tonight.

This is our last chance to make a splash in the non-conference and improve our RPI, but it's a tall order tonight.

Aaaaaand, we're back: The Mount St. Mary's Preview

2009-12-22T14:56:00.003-05:00

It's been quiet lately in these parts, as it has been in all of TerrierLand. The team has played only one game in the last two and a half weeks. Ditto for blog posts. You could say I had my own personal finals week.

But the Terriers are back tonight, and so am I. I'll be at tonight's game against Mount St. Mary's at the Roof. Maybe there will be a video or two.

We lost to the Mounters last year by 9, but MSM was better last year. They were picked preseason #1 in their conference this year, just like us, but have not been good so far even though they still have their best players from last year.

We need to beat teams like this (and Bucknell and Marist). This would give us our first 3 game winning streak going into the non-conference finale against Dayton - we can use all the momentum we can get!

Fun Fact: Mount St. Mary's is the most blasphemous school name in Division I ever since Boink St. Elizabeth's College dropped to D-3.

I wonder if Snooki will be there!!: The Marist Preview

2009-12-12T10:36:00.006-05:00

BU was able to take care of bidness against Bucknell last weekend, which I'm quite grateful for. But I have a bone to pick with the BU Athletic Dept.

I was unable to watch the game live, so I waited until late Sunday night to watch the video archive of the game. I even avoided the outcome of the game all day. Problem was, every time I tried to play the game, I got "The media you have selected is currently unavailable." This was maddening, since the whole reason I knew it was OK to miss the game was because they put up archives of all the home game broadcasts.

I tried again at work the next day. "The media you have selected is currently unavailable."

I tried AGAIN at work on Tuesday, still avoiding knowing if BU won or lost: "The media you have selected is currently unavailable."

WTF, I'm paying for this service, am I not? I am a subscriber to BU All-Access. I have an All-Access Pass, dammit! This is like going to an Alice Cooper concert with a backstage pass, only to be denied before Alice ever has a chance to explain what Milli-wauke means.

Even now, the archive is still "currently unavailable," so I had to rely on written accounts and the box score. Sounds like JOB had a great game, Corey played pretty well coming off the bench, Holland had an off-night, and Carlos and BJ had some clutch points down the stretch.

After a week off, we play again today, and then have another long layoff for finals before the next game. These breaks come at a good time. Our short bench means guys are tired, and maybe this will allow some players like Valdas and Corey to get healthy.

The Terriers travel to Poughkeepsie, NY, to visit the Marist Red Foxes. Some of you may also know that Poughkeepsie is also home to "Snooki" a.k.a. "Snickers" from newest awful/great show on MTV, Jersey Shore. This is one of those car wreck TV shows where you know you should look away but you just can't. Snooki is an annoying, loud, overtanned shrimp of a girl who gets obnoxiously drunk the first night, and while doesn't deserve what she gets later in the season, this may be one of the most gratifying images ever:

OK, back to basketball. Today's game is against Marist, another team which we cannot lose to. Marist is currently 0-6, including a 14-point loss to UNH and a 37-point loss to Hartford. I repeat, we cannot lose this game to Marist.

This team lost to BINGHAMTON: The Bucknell Preview

2009-12-06T12:27:00.003-05:00

Coming off of the big loss to UConn, BU plays Bucknell today. Bucknell is coming of a loss to... uh, Binghamton. Seriously.

Binghamton beat a team.

And we play them now.

I don't care if we're missing Corey Lowe, I don't care if we're playing in Agganis Arena. If BU loses to the team that lost to Binghamton, I quit!

There Will Be Blood: The UConn Preview

2009-12-02T15:04:00.004-05:00

In between last week's Northeastern game and today's UConn game was a game against Harvard that occurred precisely in the middle my holiday travel, hence the lack of preview/wrap-up. Yes, as a devoted fan of BU hoops I demanded of a very understanding girlfriend that we pull the car off the highway and find a bar with free WiFi, but the game was also precisely in the middle of my other favorite team, the Tennessee Titans, producing one of the more improbable comebacks in NFL history.

So, in the middle of The Office Beer Bar & Grill in Morristown, NJ, I had one eye (but no ears) on the Terriers's game against the Smarties. First the Titans were up and the Terriers were down big in the first half. Then the Titans gave up the lead but BU streaked to a double-digit lead in the second half. Finally, as the Titans made history BU ran out of gas and left Case Gym with an uninspiring 78-70 loss to an admittedly decent Harvard Crimson squadron.

It's harder than you think to watch your two favorite teams at once, but I did pick up a few things about the Terriers game. One was that Corey had a rough game - not only did he go 0-7 but had bad turnovers on two consecutive possessions in the final minutes that led to fast break dunks and thwarted any possibly comeback. Real daggers in the heart.

Another thing that I noticed is we are really hurting for bodies. BJ and Valdas were not playing due to various ailments. Tunde even got into the game, and made a nice steal and basket before the end of the first half.

This is going to be the big story going into tonight's matchup against UConn. In addition to those two guys plus Scott Brittain, the Hot Dog says Corey will now be sidelined with an injury.

Are you kidding me??? We will barely have enough guys to field a starting five. Forget that this is on TV against the #13 team in the country... we couldn't beat Binghamton with this many injuries.

OK, that isn't true. But this will be a slaughter. I am afraid to admit that I am hosting a BU Alumni in DC Club game-watch at a bar tonight. There are casual BU alums who are almost never exposed to BU basketball and will be turned off from the team because of tonight! We lost to #21 Georgia Tech by 18... we'll be lucky to lose to UConn by twice that.

Adding Insult to NU's Injury

2009-11-28T19:10:00.004-05:00

It's always fun to beat our rivals from the dirty part of the city. For the second year in a row, we did just that - this time in overtime, and on our home floor. There were no BU students in attendance to start a "Where's your football" chant, but we knew it was in the minds of their fans.

The Hussies are picked to finish 2nd in the Colonial Athletic Association behind Old Dominion this year, which makes this win arguably even better than our victory over Indiana.

It was a game of runs. NU got an early 10 point lead, which BU erased by halftime. BU jumped out to big lead in the second half, which was erased by the end of the game. Fortunately, BU ended up on top at the end of 45 minutes.

With John Holland having an off night, we needed someone to step up - and Jake O'Brien did, just like last year's game at Northeastern. Corey Lowe also stepped up, despite his 7 turnovers, and made a gutsy shot near the end of regulation, with the shot clock buzzer sounding, to tie the game and send it to overtime. B.J. Bailey played his best game so far with over 20 minutes, and he looks to be getting more comfortable with every step onto the court.

I was there and captured the final moments of regulation and the overtime period - Corey's big shot and Northeastern's last gasp.

Where's Your Football?: The Northeastern Preview

2009-11-25T12:26:00.004-05:00

Today, coming off the rush and exhaustion of a long Puerto Rico trip, a brand new experience, the team stays home to host one of its most familiar opponents, Northeastern. The all-time series is 70-66 in favor of BU, including last year's destruction of the Huskies that served as Jake O'Brien's coming out party.

The timing of this game is questionable. I'm sure there's a good reason for scheduling it on an afternoon on the day before Thanksgiving, but I don't know what it is. Probably squeezing in an extra day of rest after the San Juan trip. But on any other day (except maybe Thanksgiving itself), this game seems like it could be a pretty decent draw for students and alumni, maybe even hold it in The Greek. Today, I think we'll struggle to bring 500 people out to the Roof.

Northeastern has only played two games, a pretty close loss to great Siena team during the 24-hour ESPN showcase, and a close win over an OK Utah State team. The Huskies may be a little more talented this year, but the Terriers are already in mid-season form having played 5 games already. NU is predicted to finish near the top of the Colonial Conference this year, led by senior sharpshooter Matt Janning, who was kept relatively in check in last year's meeting despite his 22 points.

Finally, it must be mentioned: Northeastern dropped their football team this week. And while many people across the collegiate athletics landscape might express sadness, most BU fans are wearing a smile this week. Countless "BU football" chants over the last 12 years are coming back to bite those obnoxious fans in the ass. I love it. Come up with something new at the next Beanpot, losers!

The End of the Tournament Blues

2009-11-23T20:41:00.002-05:00

Even though the high from Friday's win over Indiana subsided during Saturday's off-day, many of us were still hoping to end the weekend with a bang against #21 ranked Georgia Tech. For twenty minutes, it seemed as though that might actually happen.

We were down two points after a first half that had all twelve of us BU fans riveted. It was the best basketball I've seen out of the Terriers in five years.

When the second half rolled around, our players were showing the fatigue that comes with the third game in four days, and Georgia Tech finally started acting like an ACC team. We ended up losing by a score of 85-57 as we succumbed to some guy named Peacock who shot 10-11. He killed us.

But that won't stop me from pointing out our bright spots. John Holland broke 20 points yet again, and Corey played with more energy and gave more effort that I've ever seen out of him. Jeff Pelage is slowly becoming a force inside, and I can already tell that BJ Bailey has got some sick moves. He's gonna be good

We played sharp, but when it came down to it, we were simply out-sized.

All in all, I'd say BU had a good weekend. They fought for a come-from-behind win on Friday, and play 30 great minutes against one of the better teams in the country on Sunday. If the Terriers can play like they did in the first half against Georgia Tech, we're going to pile up a shitload of wins this year.

How Bout Some Icing on the Cake: The Georgia Tech Preview

2009-11-22T10:44:00.003-05:00

We all know this tournament is already "Mission Accomplished" - the win over Indiana was awesome and that's as much as any of us could ask for.

I'm guessing Coach Pat Chambers is not satisfied however. He'd like to finish off this trip to San Juan with a stunner over the #21 ranked Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. BU last played a ranked team when they almost knocked off Notre Dame on the road last year. The Terriers led almost the entire game.

Tech has looked pretty good. They were upset by Dayton on Thursday, but disposed of George Mason on Friday. We saw the Mason game, and Derrick Favors is the real deal - one of the best frosh in the country. And Gani Lawal could have been a 1st round NBA pick last year, if he didn't return to school. We ran into some George Mason fans in Old San Juan on Friday night, and all they could talk about was how "Georgia Tech's got some biiiig boys."

So can we do it? You've got to wonder how well we will do inside. We won the Indiana game by rebounding. We've got to crash the boards at least as well to have a chance in this one, or the shooting has got to be lights out.

Their hero is WHO?? Talkin' P.R. hoops with the locals

2009-11-21T20:57:00.007-05:00

Sean Kingston nearly ruined this nice video we did with some cool kids from Puerto Rico who were there watching the basketball tournament. So I apologize in advance for the audio quality, which is why I had to put in the subtitles.

A big thanks to Andy, Robert and Eddie for taking the time to tell us what they think of basketball and the Puerto Rico Tip-Off!

This is Denis Clemente in the white jersey, the Kansas State player who the boys came to see, a.k.a. the next Jose Juan Barea. So far in the tournament, Denis is averaging 12 points per game in a win over BU and a loss to Ole Miss. Hopefully, the guys will be rooting for BU against Georgia Tech tomorrow afternoon!

[UPDATE 9:25 PM]

I just remembered seeing this by Denis Clemente a couple months ago. Sickness.

A Big Win in Puerto Rico!

2009-11-21T09:21:00.005-05:00

My expectations for the Puerto Rico Tip-Off were not high before coming down here. I thought we could compete, but with such a stacked field I did not think we'd win a game.

By now you've heard that the Terriers did just that, staging a thrilling come-from-behind victory over the storied Indiana Hoosiers. Maybe you listened on the radio stream, or even followed along with my fevered series of tweets down the stretch. But this was a game that made the trip to Puerto Rico well worth its while. We didn't just travel here for the fun of watching the Terriers, we came here and witnessed something great.

BU was behind the whole game, due to another pretty poor shooting performance, but always remained within striking distance. In the first half, we got in a hole and clawed our way back to within 2 points just before halftime... unfortunately, IU hit a buzzer-beating 3 to make that deficit 5 again. They had held Corey Lowe scoreless in the first half, but rebounding kept us in the game.

In the second half, we hung around and made our move in the final minutes thanks to huge 3-pointers by Lowe, Carlos Strong, Tyler Morris and John Holland. Jake O'Brien, with a double-double, and Jeff Pelage led BU to a 52-32 rebounding advantage over the Hoosiers. Strong's only bucket of the game, a 3 that tied the game for the first time at 63, made the BU fans go bonkers. Clutch free throws by JOB and Corey kept us up until a lay-in by Jake with a minute remaining (off a pretty feed from Tyler) put us up by 4. Indiana couldn't hit any desperation shots after that, and the rest is history.

The keys to the win were certainly REBOUNDING, the lack of FOUL TROUBLE and Indiana's refusal and/or inability to institute a full court PRESS. That press had been utilized by the 3 teams that already beat us to take us out of our offensive rhythm, and it worked. Maybe Indiana just didn't have the athletic horses to take such a tack.

Sherrod Smith and Valdas Sirutis played meaningful minutes, and BJ Bailey played his first collegiate minutes, even scoring on a lovely fast break. He looked good out there.

Coach Chambers has that monkey off his back, and got his first head coaching win. He's got the team excited and disciplined, and as the team made their way off the court he led them in a simultaneous salute to the BU fans in attendance. Awesome moment.

As for the High Roller and I, we found a cool little hole-in-the-wall pub to celebrate in Old San Juan (we've gotten pretty good at ordering beers in Spanish). We get to spend today regaining our voices before taking on #21 ranked Georgia Tech on Sunday.

But this win over Indiana, our first over a BCS conference team since Michigan in 2004, is one we'll remember for a long time!

Time to Crean House: The Indiana Preview

2009-11-20T15:01:00.000-05:00

If there was ever a year to beat mighty Indiana University in basketball... well, it was last year when they only won 6 games. But this year is a close second.

So far, the Hoosiers have taken out two competitors below BU's level, and then looked overmatched last night against Ole Miss. Why are they so bad? Well, their old coach cheated. Something about illegal texting and cell phone calls (see below). That's not very Indiana-like.

It's sad to see such a once-proud program reduced to a Binghamton-like level. But like I've said about Binghamton, that's what happens when you take shortcuts.

This will essentially be a home game for Coach Tom Crean's Indiana. They had the most fans by far (although we didn't see the Villanova game). Maybe I can get one of them to explain on camera why it was so unfair that they got hit will all sorts of sanctions by the NCAA.

Bottom line: we can win this game. The Terriers looked better last night, and that was without Corey Lowe for half the game.

Tough Loss to Kansas State, 80-70

2009-11-20T11:26:00.004-05:00

What's the difference between an Big 12 team and an America East team? Not much except for size, strength, speed, and skill. The Terriers were just as into the game as the Wildcats, possible even more, but gumption will only get you so far.

And there's only so much one team can do when they commit 34 fouls in a game. I like the way Chambers coaches, but there's no way that he can allow Corey Lowe to reach four fouls in the first half.

Corey Lowe and Tyler Morris were both limping at the end of the game, by the way. Make of that what you will.

Today we take on the Hoosiers of Indiana, and as John Holland Sr. says, it's "winnable". Less fouls, less turnovers, more threes, and tighter defense should pave the way to victory.

Mr. Holland's Opinion

2009-11-20T10:13:00.002-05:00

BU had a small but vocal group of fans present at the Kansas State game in Puerto Rico, but none were more vocal and spirited than John Holland, Sr. Whether trying to mess up the Wildcats during free throws, shouting out orders to the Terriers on the court or giving the refs a piece of his mind, John was heard throughout the Coliseo de Puerto Rico cheering on BU. The man knows what he's talking about, too; he played his own college ball at Iona College.

John was nice enough to sit down with us and chat during halftime about the tournament in Puerto Rico and BU basketball...

Better Late Than Never? A Closer Look at Kansas State

2009-11-19T23:54:00.004-05:00

This would have have been much timelier before tonight's game, but it arrived in my inbox during the first half, after I was already hoarse from screaming at the referees. However, this is good stuff and he went to all the trouble to put it together for us, so we're posting it anyway. Kansas State blog Bring On The Cats' "BracketCat" was nice enough to answer a few questions for us since we know next to nothing about the Big 12 school. Just pretend you read it before we played them.

1. When I think of Kansas State, I think of football. Have the fans started to pay attention to basketball yet?

Strangely enough, I think people are more pumped for basketball this year than they are for football. No one expected the football to be where it is, or even to be decent. As Ron Prince ran our program into the ground, basketball became a refuge for many fans. Everyone in Manhattan has been pretty fired up for basketball ever since Bob Huggins arrived (and left), and some don't know that K-State has a much better basketball tradition (pre-1988) than it does football.

2. This game will be in Puerto Rico, but what are home games like? Any cool traditions? What's the best way to make fun of the Rock Chalk Jayhawk chant?

Home games are pretty nuts. K-State has one of the best, and most underrated, home courts in the Big 12, mostly due to a student section that spans the entire east side of Bramlage Coliseum, from floor to ceiling. Traditions include the "Bring on the Cats" chant, swaying to the Wabash Cannonball, chanting "Left, right, left, right... sit down!" when opposing players foul out, and just generally being loud and annoying for the other team.

3. Jacob Pullen, Jamar Samuels and Denis Clemente helped lead the offense last year, and appear to be off to a good start again this year. Who's the star of this Wildcat team? What's their game like?

Well, you listed three of who I would say are our four most important players. The other is junior UConn transfer Curtis Kelly, who starts at the 4 position. He's our best post scorer in years, because he has all the moves you need in the post. Also surprising is starting freshman center Jordan Henriquez-Roberts, who's 7 feet tall with a legit 7'6" wingspan. Both Kelly and Henriquez are former New York Gauchos.

4. Compare and contrast the integrity and overall quality of the KU dance/cheer team with those of K-State, using the most graphic terms you feel comfortable with.

I'll put it simply. KU had a male dancer a few years back. That's all you need to know.

But in all seriousness, the Classy Cats are awesome. I should know -- I used to play trombone in the pep band and got to see them up close and personal for three years. Very talented and attractive ladies, indeed.

5. John Holland is our highlight reel dunk artist - who from K-State can we expect to match his ferocity on the rim? Got a YouTube link of one of his best?

Jamar Samuels, affectionately and aptly nicknamed "Jam Sam."

This isn't his best work, but it's a decent effort:

6. Finally, give us a prediction for the game and the Puerto Rico Tip-Off overall (blatant homerism expected and encouraged).

I'll say K-State wins 84-70. We have more depth and more inside presence, but Boston's outside shooting and our early defensive lapses should keep the Terriers in it until near the end.

My hope is to win the first two games and give a good effort against Villanova in the finals. For a team picked to finish 4th in the Big 12, and which I think can finish 3rd, that is a realistic expectation.

BU Takes on Kansas's Junior Varsity Team: The Kansas State Preview

2009-11-19T17:59:00.001-05:00

Tonight we head into the first game of the Puerto Rico Tip-Off against
Kansas State. The Wildcats come into the game 2-0 after torching two
lame opponents who aren't even worth mentioning. BU comes in at 0-2
after losing 2 forgettable games to teams we should have beaten. On
paper, this game is a tremendous mismatch.

Whether this game turns into that mismatch depends on if the Terriers
can correct some of the major problems plaguing them during the awful
GW loss. Namely SHOOTING. Gotta put the ball in the basket. We did
better in other areas, like slowing down the tempo to avoid foul
trouble. Turnovers still need to be cut down.

KSU brings an experienced team that is athletic and should contend for
an NCAA berth. A tough task for the Terriers.

But do you think of basketball when you think KSU? Me neither.
Perpetually drunk Miami Heat player Michael Beasley spent 1 year there
and probably learned how to drink there. The High Roller says Kansas
State makes him think of the good Kansas basketball team, the one that
is ranked #1.

We're hoping for a good competitive game tonight. Go Terriers!

--
Sent from my mobile device

First Impressions in PR: The Little Mermaid Motel

2009-11-19T14:54:00.004-05:00

We arrived in Luis Munoz Marin International Airport a couple of hours ago, and made our way to our low-budget car rental, and finally to the low-budget motel. Hey, no reason to class up the amenities when we'll be out watching basketball all day long.

San Juan is unlike any place I've ever been. There are wild colors everywhere. Loud dance music blaring from every direction. We drove our modest Kia Rio around the middle-class neighborhood of Isla Verde looking for the Coqui Inn. We were blocked twice by streets closed off by geysers of water shooting up from the pavement -- yes, twice. Undeterred by street signs we could not understand ("No Entre?? What the hell does that mean?!"), we somehow found our motel despite having no idea where it was on the map.

The Coqui Inn proudly proclaims on its website that it's "a friendly 'no-frills' budget hotel." This is true, but it's got a lot of charm. Every wall is painted like those airbrushed hats and t-shirts you can buy on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City. Big murals of aquatic life and beaches around the pool. I feel like I'm in The Little Mermaid.

Quote from the High Roller: "This place looks like the perfect setting for a Girls Gone Wild video... well, actually those places are usually nicer."

So far we've been here for an hour and we've quoted Arrested Development, Seinfeld, Wayne's World, Ace Ventura 2, Dumb and Dumber and Salute Your Shorts. It's good to see the High Roller.

Talk to you next from Coliseo de Puerto Rico!

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

2009-11-19T10:16:00.003-05:00

Hey there. Long time no blog, eh? High Roller here, taking advantage of Airtran's internet service (best $5.00 I ever spent). I've got my laptop, my BU jersey, $80, and no idea what to expect when I get to Puerto Rico. I've never been, so this is going to be a learning process to say the least.

As I was looking over the teams invited to the Puerto Rico Tip-Off, I couldn't help but think that BU doesn't quite fit in a tournament with Villanova, Indiana, Kansas State, Dayton, George Mason, Georgia Tech, and Ole Miss. BU rarely plays teams from the Big East, Big Ten, ACC, Big 12, and SEC, but it's great for our team, and whatever Chambers did to get us in this tournament, I hope he keeps doing it.

Did he sell his soul? Did he sell his body? All I can do is speculate, it's up to you to decide.

See you in SAN JUAN!

2009-11-18T23:46:00.007-05:00

By some stroke of luck, or genius, or cunning... the BU Hoops Blog will be reporting to you direct from San Juan, Puerto Rico over the next few days.

Thanks in large part to these guys, the High Roller and I will travel to the Puerto Rico Tip-Off and take in hours upon hours of college basketball, rooting our Terriers on all the way.

Lesser men and women would cave and spend at least a few hours on the pristine white-sand Caribbean beaches. No beaches for us. We're trading sand for hardwood, and that's the way we like it.

We fly in tomorrow, arriving some time in the middle of the George Mason/Villanova game. Come back often for plenty of updates, basketball talk and random Puerto Rico tales of hilarity. We'll be unencumbered by the constraints of work obligations, girlfriends or personal hygiene. We may even have appearances by a special guest or two.

¡Vamos, Terriers!

Hobbs, Chambers tweet before tip-off

2009-11-17T17:54:00.005-05:00

Both coaches hit their Blackberries within 5 minutes of each other for a quick tweet before the game tonight. You tell me which one feels more confident about tonight's matchup:

@GWCoachHobbs Just finished shootaround / really tough game tonight. Young group has to mature quickly.

@Coach_Chambers Heading to our shoot around... Can't wait for tonight!!! Lets pack Agganis and start the season right at home!

As always, you can follow me here @chipweis, which roughly 75% of the time it's about BU basketball.

Finally, a few minutes ago from @JohnBattaglino, can't wait to see this place packed:

We Must Protect This House: The GW Preview

2009-11-17T00:26:00.004-05:00

Today is the day we get to find out if the performance at the Terrier Tip-off worked. Coach Chambers can scream all he wants to rally the students, but if they still don't come to fill up The Greek tonight for GW, you have to wonder if they ever will.

I remember vividly the first game at Agganis Arena, a hope-filled win over Vermont seen by over 5000, a number that hasn't been matched since. Here's hoping today brings us back to that first game.

GW and I go back a long time. As they're my local team now and knowing quite a few alums, I attended quite a few Colonial games in 07-08, and flirted with sub-fandom for a while. I even have GW t-shirt. But it was a love/hate relationship, and ultimately the inferiority of the First Ladies dance team and the creepiness of the mascots pushed me to Howard instead.

However GW is a team that should be doing better. Long-time readers will know that a frequent target of mine is "Little George," who was described thusly by a blog ranking the 25 worst college mascots:

For some reason, the Colonial reminds me of the Norseman, McKinley High's mascot in "Freaks and Geeks." Both are unintentionally terrifying, with their gigantic heads and soulless eyes. While the Colonial isn't sporting a spine-tingling grin, somehow his look of placid indifference is even scarier.

The bad mascot news doesn't end there those. GW features an odd mix of several miscast mascots (see chart).

Now, there fantastic news for Colonial Nation, as Little George has been retired. I guess they got tired of re-painting his papier-mache face every year (really..) and replaced him with a much, much, much better version of Little George. Now they just have to puncture the 10-foot tall inflatable Big George and we'll be in business.

Damian Hollis has been my favorite Colonial for a while, mostly because he constantly looks like he's about to fall asleep. He comes from a long line of tall, athletic GW forwards like Rob Diggs and Pops Mensah-Bonsu, but has never achieved on the level of those two - again, mostly because he's about to fall asleep.

Hollis is the best player, and I'm not sure what to expect from the rest of the team. GW sucked last year, but still beat us.

I do know that BU is going to have to cut down on fouls and turnovers this game. The shots will fall eventually. Hopefully, many will be there to hear it. Hmm, there's a tree-falling-in-the-woods analogy somewhere in there...

Who is this fast-paced basketball team, and what have you done with BU?

2009-11-16T13:07:00.006-05:00

In my Iona preview I listed a few things people might think of when they hear "Iona." Unfortunately, BU fans who traveled to the game on Friday have emailed me to add another one: "raging alcoholic dickheads."

Read the Hot Dog's full account here, if you don't mind feeling uncomforable just sitting in your chair. Now, I'm not going to say we were all choir boys and angels back in my day, or always showed up ready to pass a breathalyzer, but we never personally targeted other fans or got in anybody's face. Especially for 40 straight minutes. These losers had zero interest in the game, just in making life miserable for the die-hard fans who made a 2-hour trip to cheer on their team. Idiots.

As for the game: sigh. In the excited build-up to every basketball season, especially this year with Coach Chambers getting everybody whipped into a frenzy, you forget how quickly you can be brought back down to earth by one uninspired opening performance.

This year it was BU losing by 9 at Iona, 82-73. One thing was crystal clear from this game: this is no longer Dennis Wolff's team. If the teams were Elton John songs, this is "Crocodile Rock" to last year's "Candle in the Wind." No more walking the ball up the floor to a half-court set offense. No more low-scoring games. And really, not much defense to be seen.

The Terriers ran up and down the floor non-stop. While this makes for an exciting, back-and-forth basketball game, I've got to criticize the strategy a bit. We had only 6 regular rotation players available... plus Vlad Sirutis and Sherrod Smith. Going up against a rotation of 11, this puts us at a disadvantage. Not only would we get tired more quickly, but the fouls mount up - which is exactly what happened. We had 6 guys finish with 4 or more fouls. Add it up and you've got a defense that resembles... the BU hockey team (sorry guys).

No strategy is going to work unless the shots fall, which they didn't. We shot under 40% for the game, and worse, made only 4 of 9 free throws in the second half. Turning the ball over 22 times doesn't help.

Bright spots were there. Tyler Morris looked like the 2006 version of himself. Carlos Strong had the first double-double of his career. The guards (Carlos, C-Lowe and Holland) rebounded the ball well, which will be important for our perimeter-oriented team.

The team's injuries hurt the depth, but even so we could have won the game. This much was glaring: the team desperately misses Scott Brittain's presence inside.

Buckle up, everybody: The Iona Preview

2009-11-13T14:26:00.007-05:00

Tonight we arrive, as KW so eloquently put it, at Milepost 0. First game, beginning of the journey that is the 09-10 BU Terriers season.

The Terriers are not making it easy on themselves. Already, Scott Brittain and BJ Bailey are out with concussions. That means were going to have a VERY thin bench for the next few days. More importantly, our youngest Terrier is off to a bumpy and painful start, and any more concussions for one of our senior captains could bring his long-term health into question. I don't even know if Trent Green had 3 concussions. Be safe, Scotty.

On paper, BU should dominate Iona College tonight, right? We won in last year's Bracketbuster, we didn't graduate any of our big scorers, they lost 2 out of their top 3 scorers and they are picked 9th out of 10 in the MAAC. My expectations would normally be for a win of blowout proportions.

But then you account for the injuries on our side (Iona is a little banged up too, but not as bad). And that we're on the road. And it's our guys' first game under Coach Pat Chambers' new system. And they have a lot of tall men.

It'll be a good first test, and a nice tune-up for the GW home opener. And hopefully a win!

Expectations and Predictions

2009-11-11T17:37:00.005-05:00

Expectations are a funny thing. As fans we cheer for our team and talk trash about how we're better than other teams. But then sometimes, we are hesitant to predict big things from our team. Why? Because we don't want to "raise expectations."

And why don't we want to raise expectations? I guess because of some fans have this idea about how much enjoyment you can get out of it. If you expect to come in 1st, and you come in 3rd, you're disappointed. If you expect to come in 1st, and you come in 1st, you're merely satisfied. And if you expect to come in 3rd, and you come in 1st, you're ecstatic beyond your wildest dreams. These fans think you get more enjoyment out of coming in 1st if you're not expecting it, and they want to mitigate their disappointment in case they come in 3rd ("Well, this is how we expected to do..."). The same effect comes into play to a sickening degree at political debates.

In the case of players and coaches, they try to set expectations low for the same reasons, except it's job security instead of enjoyment.

Well, the players can do what they want, and the coaches can do what they want. But I'm not tempering my expectations. I expect us to win a game in Puerto Rico. I expect us to win 20 games. I expect us to have two players on the All-AE First Team. I expect us to win the America East this year and go to the NCAA Tournament. And I'm going to enjoy it all just as much as if I only expected us to finish in 8th place (Binghamton is the default 9th place).

These high expectations should be the same every year, for every team. They're the reason Dennis Wolff was fired. And I don't think Pat Chambers should get any leeway from them just because he's new! We have a group of great veterans who have proven themselves capable. This is their last shot - why wouldn't they expect to make it to the NCAA's themselves!

Coach Chambers, Tyler Morris and Carlos Strong have all recently talked about not looking ahead of the next practice or game in front of them, and not worrying about where they are at the end of the year as long as they are the best team they can be. That's a fine attitude to have in order to keep concentration on the day-to-day efforts at improving. But they're crazy if they don't have any goals or expectations for the entire season.

There is pressure involved in setting high expectations. But when you expect great things, sometimes you get great results.

* * *

Now, predictions are different that expectations, but for fans they can fall into the same trap as the expectations... forecasting lower results to minigate disappointment and be "pleasantly surprised" by success. Well, not me. I predict (and expect) that this group of seniors and this new coach will bring us a championship.

Others who don't care about our program one way or the other are unencumbered by the expectations game. So what do they think?

In short, they all have pretty high expectations for us. I haven't seen a publication yet (published post-Tiki) that doesn't have us winning the America East. So what about beyond that, in the NCAA tourney?

CBS Sports: #16 vs. Kentucky
ESPN Bracketology: Play-In Game vs. Jackson State (!)
Blogging the Bracket: #14 vs. West Virginia
FoxSports: #16 vs. West Virginia

That's a lot to live up to.

Air Carlos, Now Boarding

2009-10-29T06:54:00.001-04:00

And you thought JH23 was the only Terrier who could fly?

Photo by Kristyn Ulanday via Coach Chambers

Media Day: Everybody Loves the Terriers!

2009-10-28T18:43:00.000-04:00

For the third year in a row, the America East coaches have UNANIMOUSLY picked BU to finish #1 overall in the Preseason:

1. Boston U
2. Vermont
3. Albany
4. Stony Brook
5. New Hampshire
6t. Hartford
6t. UMBC
8. Maine
9. Binghamton

And we were well represented on the Preseason All-Conference Team:

Tim Ambrose, Jr., Albany
Marqus Blakely, Sr., Vermont
Muhammad El-Amin, Sr., Stony Brook
John Holland, Jr., Boston U.
Corey Lowe, Sr., Boston U.

Pat Chambers was "sick" (no really, Coach, we believe you...) and missed his first America East Media Day, so right-hand man Orlando Vandross ably stepped in to give soundbites of things we mostly knew already. Among them:

Chambers will bring a more exciting, Villanova style of play to BU

Carlos Strong and Tyler Morris are healthy and ready to go

BJ Bailey should emerge as a regular part of the rotation by conference play

It was mighty nice of the coaches to vote us #1, but we don't care

"There is a genuine excitement about our basketball program. We need to harness it."

BU will secretly play UMass on Saturday

2009-10-28T12:41:00.004-04:00

OK, so don't tell anybody, but BU is going to play UMass in a "secret scrimmage" this coming Saturday. It'll be Pat Chambers' first experience as a head coach going up against another D-I program. It's an opponent his players will know better than he does; before last year, BU played (and lost to) the Minutemen three years in row.

Every year, teams play 1 or 2 so-called secret games against another school, one that they won't play during the regular season, just for practice purposes. It's secret because fans and media are not allowed to attend, and coaches aren't allowed to comment on them. This is because schemes and plays that coaches are trying out are apparently akin to state secrets and should be protected as such. Jeff Goodman released his list of "secret scrimmages" this morning.

This leads to some philosphical questions of the basketball universe. If two teams play a basketball game and nobody's around to see it or hear about it... does it ever actually take place? Is there a score? If an injury happens, does it miraculously heal when the teams return home? Since it's Halloween, will they dress up in disguises?

If, somewhere in the space-time continuum, this game actually occurs and somebody hears about it and any real or virtual scores, storylines or injuries, let us know!

Just the Tip-Off

2009-10-24T22:33:00.003-04:00

PAT CHAMBERS.

I could end the post there and I would have said enough. But it deserves a few more words. We have heard Pat Chambers talk a lot about getting kids fired up for basketball. This is the first time we saw it in action. Like a mad man, Chambers sprinted out onto the court, screaming at the fans to stand up, even jumping up on the scorers table. And the fans responded by standing up, and screaming back louder. Chambers lost his voice in about 2 seconds. He went on for about 5 minutes talking about supporting the team, getting fired up, the team has a new attitude.

It was a far cry from a Dennis Wolff tip-off performance, or even the BU women's coach. It might even succeed in getting people to go to games, who knows.

Random observations from the rest of the night:

-- Is it just me, or were the guy's intro songs slightly outdated? I think the time for "Hey Shorty, It's Your Berfday" and "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" has passed. (And John Holland, lose the Yanks cap dude. You're trying to connect with the student body!)

-- Speaking of outdated songs, someone with access please slip some newer material under Chris Parks' office door. I love the BU Band -- they are probably the most devoted BU sports fans there are -- but the old songs they have been playing since I was a freshman (a decade ago!!) just remind me of the OLD BU basketball. Pat Chambers is trying to re-invent this program with new life, but that old intro song the band plays (whatever it's called) keeps me back in the DWolff era. And were any students even born before "Push It" came out?

-- The Dance Team was good as usual, but I'm feeling the MJ fatigue. But the collab with the hoops team was "Bad" (meaning good). John Holland was not good, Tyler Morris was surprisingly good, and Jeff Pelage looked like he was having the most fun out there.

-- My ranking of the different dance performances of the night:

1. Fusion
2. BU Dance Team
3. BU Cheer Team
4. XCeption
5. Status Quo - not impressed by them. Bring back Lil' Phunk or Phunk Phenomenon!
...
99. BU Men's Basketball team - points for effort. At least it was better than this:

-- In the first round of the 3-point shooting contest, both girls beat Tyler Morris and Corey Lowe. In fact, both guys appeared to be drunk. But then Tyler redeemed the men by getting on fire in the second round, proving once and for all the men are the dominant gender.

-- The best dunks from the dunk contest were pretty impressive. Carlos Strong was the clear winner, so I'm glad he took the title for the second staight year. My favorite comment, courtesy of Dean Elmore: "Show 'em what it means to be from Maine, Carlos!"

Line up the troops!

2009-10-15T23:30:00.003-04:00

At Fake BU, the lineup means standing in front of a giant ruler and a witness behind glass. At the Real BU, however, it means the five guys who are going to lead Coach Chambers into his inaugural season on the court.

Projecting the Terriers' starting lineup and depth chart will not be as easy this year as it seems. Even if Chambers didn't bring in any of his own guys this year, he's bringing his own system and philosophies and we may not know how the players fit into his schemes.

That said, we've seen what all but one of these guys can do so we have a pretty good starting point. What can we expect to begin the season? My guess:

1: Corey Lowe
2: Carlos Strong
3: John Holland
4: Jake O'Brien
5: Scott Brittain

I think this is the year that 'Los sheds the "6th Man" label and gets a chance to start every game. The other option is throwing Tyler in at the point and moving Corey off the ball, but Tyler was a little less effective last year after coming back from injury. Chambers may feel that Corey would be more effective off the ball. But due to Tyler's injury problems of the last few years, he may benefit from not being ridden for 35 mins per game this year. I think that Tyler would excel in a bench/quick energy, shooting and defense role, but we know he can hold down a starting job too.

There aren't really any other debates about the starting lineup, but there is certainly some decent depth right behind them. While noting that practice hasn't even started yet, here's how I could see it shaking out:

1: Lowe/Bailey
2: Strong/Morris
3: Holland/
4: O'Brien/Sirutis
5: Brittain/Pelage

I think it'll be a 9-man rotation, with Vlad Sirutis getting only a few per game. Mike Schultz, Tunde, Sully and, unfortunately, TheRod Smith will play the role of pine-jockey until the team is completely ravaged by injuries.

Who's steering this thing??

2009-10-12T16:51:00.019-04:00

Famous captains:

Apparently, you can add 4 more to that list. Coach Chambers announced that Corey Lowe, Tyler Morris, Scott Brittain and Carlos Strong are BU's captains this year. This group contains all of the seniors who have played significant minutes every year since they were freshmen.

Congrats to all of them, as they have all been great contributors over their three years so far and they all deserve to be recognized.

However, and maybe I'm behind the times on this, but I have always been of the mind that there should be 1 captain per team. It's very cool for all the players if every significant player to go through the system becomes a captain at some point in their careers, but if every player is a captain does it really mean anything?

And if they really do have actual responsibilities, is it a good idea to have 4 guys trying to make decision or run drills? You know what they say about too many cooks in the kitchen.

Take Derek Jeter or Jason Varitek, for example. They are not the best players on their teams, but they lead by example and they lead by their words. It's not Varitek, Wakefield, Lowell, Ortiz just because they are the "seniors" of the Red Sox. President Obama is the "Captain" of America... we didn't choose the 4 guys who had been in the Senate the longest.

Regardless, I'm sure the guys will find some way to divide the captaining responsibilities. As long as it doesn't devolve into an ugly power struggle along the lines of Jim Halpert/Michael Scott.

BU's schedule: This time with Latin Flavor!

2009-10-06T23:35:00.000-04:00

Most of you have seen and pored over the BU non-conference schedule, which came out via Twitter a month ago. I tweeted some reaction at the time, but here it is all in one place:

11/13/09 at Iona
11/17/09 vs George Washington
11/19/09 vs Kansas State
11/20/09 Indiana/Mississippi
11/22/09 TBD
11/25/09 vs Northeastern
11/29/09 vs Harvard
12/02/09 vs Connecticut
12/06/09 vs Bucknell
12/12/09 at Marist
12/22/09 vs Mount St. Mary's
12/29/09 at Dayton
2/19/09 TBD

With a brand new coaching staff, you'd expect to see a few changes from the past few schedules. But... no, not really. This year's out-of-conference slate looks a lot like last years. (Maybe that's because the AD has a bigger hand in putting together these games.)

Our home opener is GW for the second straight year. This is a series of which I'm a big fan. Last year we took them to OT, this year we should be able to finally break through. Sad they won't be playing here in DC, but on the bright side I won't have nightmares from their mascots.

Iona and Marist are middling MAAC teams - at least we can't get them in the Bracketbuster, as we did Iona last year. FUN FACT: John Holland's pops played at Iona.

Harvard and Northeastern are there every year. Doesn't make me like them any better.

Mount St. Mary's and Bucknell are both very decent teams from other low-major conferences. We split them last year; with an improved squad we should take both this year.

Now it starts to get really interesting. We play against UConn at the big Hartford arena, then against Dayton in their intimidating building. Chances of taking either game are slim as both are great teams, but it's a good learning experience for the guys that'll make chumps like Bucknell seem like JV Girls.

Finally, the crown jewel is the Puerto Rico Tip-Off beginning with Kansas State, then Indiana or Ole Miss, then George Mason/Villanova/Georgia Tech/Dayton (again). All are great power conference teams (or close enough), and we'll be lucky to steal one. Indiana is probably our best chance, since they're the Big Ten version of Binghamton except not nearly as addicted to crack.

As soon as we know a little more about all of these teams, I'll come back with a prediction for each game. Until then, we wait (im)patiently for the conference schedule to come out!

I'm embarrassed to share our initials

2009-09-29T00:46:00.006-04:00

It's almost October - and although you may not believe me due to lack of posts, I've been starting to think a lot about the start of BU basketball season!

I have dutifully been following Coach Chambers on Twitter, and on his blog Chambers Vision... and now even John Holland is blogging! That's one thing I can say pretty definitively, that John Holland wouldn't be blogging under a Coach Wolff regime. Chambers seems to think that the more people read and hear about the team, the more people will get interested in it. That's the main point behind a lot of blogs, including this one!

What really jumpstarted me into writing again, however, is the steaming shitpile emanating from the Southern Tier of NY. And for once, I'm not talking about Elmira.

Binghamton, of course, is making national headlines again. Tiki Mayben, their point guard who couldn't even make grades at UMASS(!), was arrested because he had a warrant out in lovely Troy, NY for selling crack cocaine, the result of a 3-month investigation. He went home to Troy "after class" last Wednesday, and got picked up -- and he had a bunch of coke on him when he was arrested too! Not only that, but he had been arrested like 12 days earlier on Binghamton's campus for pot possession. Stop me when you've heard all this.

Long story short, the city and state created a backlash against the Binghamton program and its leadership, going all the way up to the statewide chancellor. They had seen enough of the bullshit brought on by the shady Coach Kevin Broadus. Mayben is now off the team, along with 5 of the shadiest other dudes on the team. One happens to be Malik Alvin, a starter from last year, and one happens to be DJ Rivera, the so-called best player in the conference. All this is the name of cleaning up this "zoo" of a program (the athletic director's words, not mine).

Now this is a sad story. I feel bad for Tiki in a sense... he is a product of his environment to a degree... and especially bad for his kid. But this is a basketball blog.

Everybody else in the conference knew Broadus was taking shortcuts in building his program. So screw him. There's no being torn about how to treat Binghamton when we play them. These assholes are the defending champs. Their dirtbag coach brings in questionable character guys as a shortcut to win. And their fans were incredible d-bags about it. They loved Broadus when he was winning games with these guys. Now they reap what Broadus sowed. Frankly I'm embarrassed our school is associated with them. No mercy.

Their own fans are finally seeing what this strategy has brought. The alumni and community, especially, are turning away from the team. Here is a hilarious letter to the editor of the Binghamton Press & Sun Bulletin from the manager of the local zoo:

Comparison insults zoo
September 29, 2009

I am tired of hearing that blight on Binghamton University, the men's basketball team, being referred to as a "zoo." The Binghamton Zoo at Ross Park has just received re-accreditation by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the industry's governing authority. We achieved this status by being in the top 10 percent of all the zoos in the country.

Our animal care, safety, employees and educational and service standards are set high and met accordingly. Not one of our tigers has been arrested with cocaine. No otter knocks over old ladies to shoplift condoms. Our bear doesn't have temper tantrums and storm off his exhibit. You won't find any of our lemurs busted for smoking pot. So, please, stop insulting zoos by comparing those criminals to us.

Amanda J. Padwa
Business Manager
Binghamton Zoo

I usually shy away from writing about other teams in the conference. However, this thing couldn't be more huge for BU. I haven't gotten to see all the preseason previews, but most have Binghamton #1 and BU #2. Without all these guys, there is zero chance Binghamton finishes in the top half of the conference, or even out of the play-in game. Before any shot is taken, in the blink of an eye, the biggest obstacle to Coach Chambers' taking BU to the promised land just vanished.

BU has just become the clear favorite to win the America East.

Where's our non-conference sked??

2009-08-26T16:48:00.002-04:00

You'll never believe this, but I was writing a post earlier today complaining that we haven't heard much about our non-conference schedule this season. While many other schools have been releasing their slates over the past month, Terrier fans have been scraping around other school's web sites trying to find any trace of a non-conference match-up.

I even sent Coach Chambers a tweet begging for some kind of sneak preview.

Apparently a lot of other people have been doing the same thing, since BU today announced that the entire OOC schedule will be announced through Twitter! From the press release, AD Mike Lynch said, "We are always looking for new ways to drive traffic to our website and interact with Terrier Nation, and are confident this will be a fun experiment for our fanbase."

I think it's cool as hell, and I wonder if any other schools have done this before. Maybe it'll even attract some buzz in the form of some kind of "here's the latest thing that Twitter is redefining"-type article.

Anyway, the schedule will be announced, tomorrow starting at 12:00pm, on the official BU Athletics Twitter: http://twitter.com/BUAthletics

Following each announced game, Coach Chambers will tweet his thoughts on the game from his account: http://twitter.com/Coach_Chambers

And then after that, I will tweet a thought or two about any of the games that seem interesting -- you know, fan perspective: http://twitter.com/chipweis

I'd encourage everybody else out there to Twitter about the matchups, and please use the hashtag #BUhoops so it's easy to find what everyone is saying about it.

A Damn Shame

2009-06-27T14:29:00.003-04:00

I think the saddest part of Coach Wolff's departure is that we have to retire these bad-ass shirts that Tall-boy made up.
Whose got ideas for Coach Chambers T-shirts?

Will the Chambers plan work?

2009-06-18T14:05:00.006-04:00

Coach Pat Chambers came to BU and saw a deficit of enthusiasm. And judging by the way he's handled his first few months, he's making it priority #1 to change that.

The apathetic aura surrounding BU basketball is a long-known and often-lamented fact around campus. Sure there are die-hards. But there are also box scores that show no hope of getting attendance figures out of the triple-digits. And national blogs writing about how the published figure was 276, but the in-person count was merely 147.

I don't plan on doing this all season long, but contrast the efforts of our former coach with our new one. I am one who thought Dennis Wolff was a good coach, but his outreach efforts to the student fan base consisted of a 3 minute speech at Midnight Madness. Then get out of the way and let the sports marketing department struggle to push the boulder up the mountain.

Chambers has a plan. A plan that will require a lot of time and effort, but and one he has already begun to embrace. And it's one that says get out of the way sports marketing department, I'll handle this one.

1. He started a blog. And it's not like the "The BU Blog" on the Athletic Dept website, which despite the fact that it's got good info and shows they're trying, still sounds press release-y. No, Coach's blog is obviously written by him. His "Chambers Vision" videos are awesomely hand-filmed by himself. The whole thing gives BU fans who are hungry for more to read about the team (and yeah, there's a couple of us like that). Frankly, that's why we started this blog. Does that make our blog obsolete? Don't answer that.

Go read Coach Chambers' blog: http://coachpatchambers.blogspot.com/

2. He's twittering. Like you, I thought twitter was retarded. Then Coach Chambers came on there and started spilling nuggets about recruits coming on campus and all the other good stuff I want to know about, and it forced me to check it out. And then I grudgingly admitted that there was some other cool stuff on there, so I signed up. Gratuitous pimp: Follow me here if you're so inclined - it's not all BU hoops stuff, but some of it will be - and once the season starts, look out.

Oh, and go read Coach Chambers' twittering: http://twitter.com/Coach_Chambers

3. He's going out and meeting regular students. People just like you and me! He's just going up to people and talking to them. He's going to talk to student groups and wander around the dorms. And, in a very smart move, he's trying to snag them during orientation, before they can be poisoned by the hockey-industrial complex. Does anyone remember the BU Soccer Tailgate on the first day of school last year? They just herded all the freshmen to that thing and ended up with 5,000 fans, which is just amazing.

4. He's sending PLAYERS out to meet regular students. This is something I thought they should do forever. A lot of the fans who come to the games are there because they're friends with some players and they want to support them. I started coming to some games during my sophomore year, but I didn't become a die-hard until I worked with some of the players over the summer. After that, it was cool to see guys I was friends with out there on the court.

The players need to be ambassadors for the program. I understand that they are just college kids, and they are probably a little shy to just go up to random people all the time, especially if you are freakishly tall. I would probably have a tough time with that too. But it would go so far to walk around the lunchroom at Myles or Warren and show everyone that they're students just like them. I imagine it's a lot harder for someone to blow off the basketball game if the day before Tyler Morris asked you point blank if you'd come watch him.

5. He wants to play all our home games at The Greek. Coach thinks it helps build a big-time atmosphere around the program (and probably would help attract better recruits). It's definitely a topic of contention, and has been discussed at length here and elsewhere. Are those in favor of home games at The Roof swayed at all by Coach's plans? Do you want to see evidence that his plan is working first, and then move games to Agganis? It's kind of a chicken-and-egg scenario. I am on record as being pro-Agganis though.

So that's Coach's plan as I understand it. I'm optimistic.

Here's one piece of advice I'd offer: when targeting students in the dining halls and dorms to recruit to games, go after girls. Don't just forget about them because we think of guys as more traditional basketball fans. Make them the priority. Since stereotypes are such a good time-saver, remember that girls are more willing to try new things, they make personal connections better, they are unfailingly loyal to friends, they find basketball players hot, and wherever girls go -- guys will follow.