A Boost for Our Bench Scoring: The Maine Preview

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.

...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.

Halfway Home: The Maine Preview

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

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

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

The Story of the First Half: Coping With Injuries

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

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

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

What Can We Expect the Rest of the Year?

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

It depends on whether the bench can continue to improve.

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

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

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

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

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

The strangest BU basketball career ever

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

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

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

We anxiously await Sully's return to the lineup.

The Return of Sully

I had to do a double-take while I was watching the Terrier Tip-Off video last weekend and saw this:

Nevermind his goofy grin and arm flail, but it seems that Brendan Sullivan, who appears to be on the 2008-09 roster, is the same one that appeared on the 2005-06 statistics page. However, all evidence of him has been scrubbed from the 2005-06 roster archive.

Brendan, who was only on the team for one year, was best known for two things:

1)
His 15 point explosion against Rider, where he canned 5 three-pointers, scoring all but 6 of his 21 career points.

2)
The questionable circumstances under which he left the team. After being suspended for team rules, rumors flew about locker room fights between Sully and another member of the team, never substantiated. He ended up missing the last game of the regular season and the entire America East tournament due to his suspension, as mentioned in the Game Notes for the February 26, 2006 game against Hartford. Then, after the season, Brendan either quit the team or was kicked off the team -- we never found out, because he didn't comment for this Freep article.

Who knows what he did between then and now -- but he's back as a junior (did he go to school or play ball for one of those three years?) and he's paying his own way as a walk-on.

So... Brendan did something bad enough to be suspended by Wolff for the remainer of a season and leave the team for "off-court troubles"... and now he's welcomed back by Wolff 3 years later? And where the eff did he go? I'd love to hear more about how this happened.


[Update]: Looks like America Least beat me to the punch on this.