The real fun begins: The Stony Brook Preview

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

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

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

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

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

House of Pain: The Dayton Preview

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

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.