John Holland should be AE Player of the Year

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

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.

Shock! BU will not play MAAC Bracketbuster

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

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.

Buckle up, everybody: The Iona Preview

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!

There's no place like home

There was yet another Freep column today about which building BU should play basketball inside of. The Hot Dog has established in the past that he is strictly in favor of Case Gym as the home for BU basketball. The guy who wrote yesterday's article, known to Freep.com readers only as "MEYER," is in favor of playing our home games at Harry Agganis Arena. I thought I'd weigh in.

First, the Hot Dog's case for Case stems mostly from the performance of the current and recent teams, in terms of winning percentage and shooting percentage. The reality is, those things are going to correct themselves back to the mean in time. There is no Agganis Curse, as Coach Wolff rightfully insists and I'm sure the HD knows this. But Hot Dog makes good points about practice time and comfort level on the Agganis floor that are valid - but I think those are things that will improve on their own over time as well. The Terriers won their fifth game at The Greek this year, and looked more comfortable than I have ever seen them play there in their win over Albany. They play the last game of the season there against Hartford, and I'm predicting the comfort level will continue to improve with each game.

I disagree with MEYER's original complaint that BU's "big deal" of a Bracketbuster game should have been played at Agganis; it would have been a big deal if it were a real Bracketbuster on TV, but it wasn't... and if we had gotten a TV game, I believe it would have been held at The Greek. But he/she makes good points about many teams having separate practice facilities, about The Roof being the smallest AE facility BY FAR, and about impressing recruits with our nice new arena.

Look, we are not filling up either gym. Attendance at Case is probably hovering somewhere around the 500 mark. While it's only marginally better at Agganis, it looks bad no matter where we play. Might as well give the fans a thrill by being lonely in a big-time arena.

And about the fans. Many fans are attached to The Roof, including me. They say it sounds louder in there because every is closer to the action. But they said the same thing when the hockey team moved from Walter Brown Arena to Agganis. And they were right to an extent, but I don't think anybody is complaining about it any more.

The bottom line is that if we have an A+ facility on campus, we should use it. Playing there more often should alleviate the comfort concerns of the players, and playing some lesser opponents there should get that winning percentage back on the right track. As far as attendance is concerned, it sucks right now no matter where we play. The only thing that can fix that is winning. And that has little to do with where we play the games.

Bracket Bluster: The Iona Preview

Today is BracketBuster Saturday. While Vermont is on The Deuce (do people still call it that?) playing in a real Bracketbuster against Buffalo, at the same time BU will be stuck inside Case Gym playing a sub-.500 team in a "Bracketbuster Pool game." Unfortunately this does not mean they're playing Marco Polo.

Back during our 8-game winning streak (R.I.P.) I got cocky and complained about the quality of our opponent, Iona College. Right now, Iona is 12-15, under .500 in conference play, and sitting in 6th place in the MAAC. Their RPI is languishing in the low 100's. Basically, they're not very good.

But let's get real, we're not busting anyone's bracket they way we're playing lately. I predicted before the season that we'd get stuck with some shitty MAAC team, and we are, just like usual.

What BU needs more than a better BB opponent is some wins and getting back to playing the way we were before. And some rest. The guys look tired.

Corey is mad from being benched against Stony Brook. We could have won the game if he played, but I'm pretty glad he got some rest anyway. I hope it lights a fire under his ass for the rest of the season. Last time he was benched, he came back to play the best ball of his life.

FCP says Wolff is planning to start Lowe against Iona, so everybody's back on good terms. Wolff also says he's planning to play all the starters their regular minutes. I suppose he wants to get them back into the flow of how we were playing before, but I can't say I wouldn't like to see quite a few minutes of Valdas, Pelage and --dare I say it?-- the Rod.

(Nah.... never happen)

The Quest for 901: The St. Peter's Preview

St. Peter's is almost certainly the worst team we will play this year. They only won 6 games last year, and only 5 the year before that. We were forced the play them on the road in last year's Bracketbuster, squeezing out a bit-too-close-for-comfort 3-point victory. And so we're forced to play them again this year at our house. Hopefully that will be the end of this boring series.

While BU has played two opponents of decent quality to a 1-1 split so far, St. Pete has played two poor teams, Wagner and Lehigh, and lost to both of them by double-digits.

The peacocks are led by Wes Jenkins, who led the team in scoring last year and seems to be well on his way again this year: he's the only 'Cock in double figs so far, with 22.5 ppg through 2 games.

On the BU side, we should get a YOOGE boost from the return of Scott Brittain, who will play but not start. I'm very excited about Scotty coming back - I thought we would have won both our games so far in regulation with his help. I'm expecting big things and much improvement from him, thanks to some tough love from Wolff:

“I’ve been on him relentlessly for a kid that I really, really like,” Wolff said Nov. 7. “I’ve said to him at the end of the year, you’ll either be on one of the all-league teams or you will hate me.”

Moving on, this will be the second home opener for BU this year -- this time they're opening up the Roof. Historically, attendance for games at the Roof has languished in the triple-digits, a stark contrast from games at the Greek. This will be compounded by tomorrow's no-name opponent. However, it's still early in the season, so people are supposedly still excited about the team. And students haven't left for Thanksgiving yet, for the most part. Here's a fun game: the total enrollment at St. Peter's is 1,802. The capacity of Case Gymnasium is 1,800. Assuming the 12 student athletes on the St. Pete's basketball team were sitting on the bench, they don't even have enough students to fill our tiny high school-style gym.

But here's the question: Can BU pack at least HALF of St. Peter's enrollment into Case for tomorrow's game? That's 901 Terriers fans and sympathizers. Why or why not?

The Better Belding

When it comes to the America East conference schedule, which came out yesterday, I think of it like Mr. Belding. Do you remember when he wanted to take the gang on their Senior Class Trip to Yosemite for a lovely, but slightly boring and predictable, nature outing? But then his brother the substitute teacher, Rod Belding, swooped in with the more exciting prospect of whitewater rafting, leaving Mr. Belding to sadly toss his Yosemite brochures in the trash.

Every year, the non-conference schedule swoops in, tempting us with fun exciting games like Notre Dame and UMass and GW. But where's that non-conference schedule gonna be when the end of the year comes and BU wants to try to make the Big Dance? That's right: taking off with some stewardess who's only in town for the weekend.

And that's when we'll realize who's been there with us the whole time - the predictable and slightly boring games with Maine, Binghamton and Stony Brook. The long, flowing golden locks of GW and the chiseled jaw of Marshall are not taking us whitewater rafting to the postseason... it's going to be the balding, paunchy Hartford's and Albany's.

To paraphrase, it may not be the most exciting schedule, but yesterday we got the better schedule.

Thu 1/8 - @ Albany
Sun 1/11 - vs. New Hampshire
Wed 1/14 - vs. Vermont
Sat 1/17 - @ Binghamton
Mon 1/19 - vs. Stony Brook
Thu 1/22 - vs. UMBC
Sun 1/25 - @ Maine
Sat 1/31 - @ Hartford
Mon 2/2 - @ UMBC
Thu 2/5 - vs. Albany
Sat 2/7 - @ New Hampshire
Wed 2/11 - @ Vermont
Sat 2/14 - vs. Binghamton
Wed 2/18 - @ Stony Brook
Sat 2/21 - vs. Bracketbuster TBA
Thu 2/26 - vs. Maine
Sun 3/1 - vs. Hartford

We found out which AE games are going to be held in The Greek too: Vermont on 1/14, Albany on 2/5, and Hartford on 3/1 (along with GW, Marshall, Holy Cross and the Bracketbuster). Vermont and Albany are no-brainers, as the dominant forces in the conference over the past few years. To me, Hartford is a mild upset - I thought they would give UMBC some respect for winning it all last year. But it'll be cool because the Hartford game is Senior Night - hopefully a starting lineup consisting of Matt Wolff, Marques Johnson and someone named Sam Tully can fill the Arena.

Too early to speculate on Bracketbuster opponent?

As the High Roller mentioned earlier this month, ESPN officially announced which schools would be playing in this year's Bracketbuster. This news confirms what Coach Wolff told me this summer, that BU would host a Bracketbuster game at The Greek this year, the first ever home BB matchup for the America East.

The games feature a whopping 102 schools. Thirteen of the games will get the Hollywood treatment on ESPN, ESPNU (which I don't get), ESPN Classic (which I don't get), and ESPN360.com (which I don't get). So even if the Terriers are good enough to play in a TV game this year, odds are I won't be able to watch anyway.

Unlike the High Roller though, I don't think February 20-21 seems too far away to speculate about matchups, does it?

Here's the full roster, separated into Home and Away teams, and sorted by last year's RPI:

HOME TEAMS	ROAD TEAMS
Drake	Butler
Kent State	Illinois State
Davidson	VCU
St. Mary’s	George Mason
Creighton	Southern Illinois
Siena	Cleveland State
Nevada	Utah State
Wright State	Miami (Ohio)
UC Santa Barbara	Akron
Portland State	CS Fullerton
San Diego	Ohio
Valparaiso	Austin Peay
Winthrop	Boise State
Rider	UMBC
Marist	Bradley
Niagara	CS Northridge
Western Michigan	Missouri State
New Mexico State	Northern Iowa
UNC Wilmington	Morgan State
Indiana State	Pacific
Old Dominion	Loyola-Maryland
Georgia Southern	Green Bay
Illinois-Chicago	UC Irvine
William & Mary	Appalachian State
Fairfield	Northeastern
Milwaukee	Hartford
Central Michigan	Delaware
Murray State	Toledo
Vermont	North Dakota State
Wichita State	Gardner-Webb
Bowling Green	Elon
Bucknell	Iona
Tennessee-Martin	Morehead State
James Madison	Montana State
Cal Poly	Hofstra
Tennessee State	Fresno State
Loyola Chicago	Liberty
Youngstown State	Buffalo
Towson	Manhattan
Eastern Michigan	Tennessee Tech
San Jose State	Fairleigh Dickinson
Boston U.	Georgia State
Drexel	Detroit
Evansville	UC Riverside
Eastern Kentucky	Northern Illinois
Hawai’i	Saint Peter’s
Southeast Missouri State	Canisius
Ball State	Louisiana Tech
Idaho	South Dakota State
UC Davis	Eastern Illinois
Long Beach State	Jacksonville State

Although it's a rough estimate, last year's rankings dictate that we would have gotten Georgia State this year - a serious upgrade from St. Peter's (who you'll notice is 4 spots lower than BU). Vermont (North Dakota State) and Hartford (Wisc.-Milwaukee) got cool matchups too.

Based on past history, we'll get a shitty MAAC team again. Luckily, we can't get St. Pete's again since we're already playing them this year, but I guess that puts Manhattan back into the mix. Somehow, ALL 10 TEAMS from the MAAC make it into the Bracketbuster! It makes no sense! So of course, we'll probably end up with Iona, or Canisius, or someone equally as lame.

For selfish geographic purposes, I'd love to draw VCU or George Mason, or maybe Morgan State or Loyola if we suck this year. And the High Roller would I'm sure enjoy UC-Irvine or UC-Riverside or Cal State Fullerton.

But part of me just wants some random team we've never faced before - kind of like Albany randomly got Boise State a couple years ago. I'd gladly take Utah State or Austin Peay or Detroit or South Dakota State.

Wolff sez: More games at the Greek (including BracketBuster!)

I had a chat with D-Wolff recently, just like I did last year, for a quick summer update on the happenings surrounding the Terriers. He was cool enough to call me while driving between two different gyms in Vegas during the big recruiting week there a little while ago.

Scouting in Vegas? Sounds like fun right? But coaches like Wolff and his assistants aren't there to drop a couple C-notes on the blackjack tables at Caesar's or spend a couple hours watching Gallagher find new ways to smash watermelons. No, it's a real grind going from gym to gym to look at hundreds of kids and having to choose between eating a meal and going to take a leak. For a really good illustration of what it's like read about it here (scroll down to Tuesday, July 29, 2008) or here.

Anyway, so it was incredibly nice to Coach to set aside a few minutes for me. Like a jackass, I didn't actually record the conversation because I have no idea how to record both ends of a telephone call with a regular tape recorder. I took notes, but they aren't perfect. So for that reason, info gleamed from the interview will spill out in smaller bits.

Like this, to start: Coach says the team will inconvenience the almighty hockey team a bit more this year by playing SEVEN games in Agganis Arena a.k.a. The Greek. The most we've had before was either 3 or 4, I can't remember.

The idea behind this is to create more of a big-time atmosphere around the team, and to me it's true: the games seem more of a big deal when they are played in a real college arena, and not a high school gymnasium. The skeptics among us will point out that if the tiny Roof looks empty on game nights then the Greek is going to look like the loneliest place on earth. Others will point to the Terriers' dismal win-loss record at Agganis. Well I say eff that... I want my team to play at the nicest court we have.

There will be 3 non-conference games there: GW, Marshall and Holy Cross. Good choices all, since they're the 3 highest profile home opponents we've got.

The Greek will also be hosting a BracketBuster matchup - and it's the first time a home game has been awarded to an America East team. I am REALLY hoping for a TV game this year. It'll be nice to be relevant after getting stuck with meaningless games against Manhattan and St. Peter's the last 2 years.

That leaves 3 America East games to be hosted at Agganis. Anybody got guesses on which ones they will be?

[Insert juvenile Peacock joke here]

So this year, the "Bracketbuster" was less about Brackets and more like a Bust for BU - playing 6-19 St. Peter's is not the prize that we would like to have for interrupting the stretch run of our conference season. Still, today's 67-64 win was good to show just how far we have come as a team.

BU shot much worse than the PeaCOCKS (37.8% versus 48.0%), yet still came away with the victory because they took care of the ball and shared with others (only 8 turnovers all game, and 18 assists). That wouldn't have happened during the normal non-conference season. They also showed grit by coming from behind to take the win. They were down by 3 with just over a minute remaining, but turned that into a 3-point victory thanks to a wide open layup by Matt Wolff (who has really proved his worth lately) with 13 seconds left and clutch free throws by Johnny Holland.

**Fun Fact**: This is the first victory in any Bracketbuster or Bracketbuster-affiliated game for an America East team! Go us!

Congrats are in order for Corey Lowe - he shot 14 3-pointers, but the 6 that went in were enough for him to break the BU single season record for made 3-pointers (the record was 79, he now has 83). For a guy who missed 5 whole games due to injuries and his little vacation earlier this year, and still has at least 3 games to go, that is damn impressive.

Huge game next Thursday against Hartford - a chance to move into a tie for second place... and it's at our place. Time to bring it, Terrier fans.

"Bracketbuster" (note the quotations)

Our "bracketbuster" match-up has been announced, and we will play St. Peters on Feb. 23rd. This is one of four bracketbuster games for America East, bringing some slight recognition to our conference. Of course, looking at all of the matchups now, there are a hell of a lot of bracketbuster matchups. It'd be sad if we had less than, say, the MAAC. Which we do.

Anyway, St. Peters is 2-10 in the MAAC, and 5-17 overall. Their signature win is against Rutgers.

This match-up leads me to believe that the NCAA is really stretching for Bracketbusters, because I seriously find it hard to believe that either of these teams' brackets will be busted by this game. In fact, it's actually quite obvious that the only way either team will make the tourney in March is with a win of each team's respective conference tournament.

But it's always fun to pretend. See you in wherever the hell St. Peters is.