A Joyful Ride Home from Rhody

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!

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?

The sky is not falling

BU is coming off two pretty disappointing losses, but for VASTLY different reasons - and neither one gets me too depressed about how the season is going.

Notre Dame - we lead the #12 team in the nation, who hasn't lost in their building in like 4 years, for 37 out of 40 possible minutes. Basically all but the ones that count. This was one of the most exciting games I've watched BU play in a long time. I was fist-pumping and ninja-kicking all over the room, every time we scored a big deep three to answer an Irish run. In the end, we just ran out of gas and the shots stopped falling. McAlarney started hitting some of his normal shots, and Harangody just decided he wasn't going to allow a loss to Boston University.

But the Terriers showed how they are capable of playing.

Delaware - this game pissed me off just because I TiVo'ed it (for some reason it was televised on cable here in the DC area) and also had the BU All-Access as a back-up. I went to great lengths to avoid seeing the score before watching the game, since the Titans game was on at the exact same time. So I pull up BU All-Access (via the Men's Hockey page, so as to not see the game headline on the homepage) and right on the top of the video player is the headline: "Delaware trey sinks BU, 70-68." Well, that really makes you want to watch a whole game, right?

I did my best to watch as much as I could - I did fast forward through a lot of free throws and stoppages. From what I gathered, we did not play our best basketball but put ourselves in position to win the game at the end. On an off night, that's all we can hope for. I do think we are a better team than Delaware, and we led for the entire game - but they hit the shots when it mattered. It's a game we should have won but didn't.

So there they are - two losses for different reasons, neither of which spells doom for the season despite the Chicken Littles out there. A record of 5-5 is not where I, or Coach Wolff, or anyone else really hoped the team would be after 10 games. But there have been good things to go along with some very tough losses so far. Certainly enough to build on as conference play approaches.

On Hold For the NFL: The Delaware Preview

Today's Delaware game is going to be a good barometer game. Have the Terriers truly improved since last year? This will be a good way to find out.

One year ago, the High Roller and myself, along with the Hot Dog and Jesus and maybe 3 other BU fans, suffered through a tough game in Delaware where the Terriers got straight out-played. The High Roller had almost as much trouble finding the arena, searching for a good hour in confusing Newark, DE, as BU did on the court.

But this year, the Blue Hens have already lost to Vermont by 15. The don't seem to be the same team they were last year, and luckily neither to we, since this was right about the time we were having major injury issues.

Let's hope those friendly Case Gym rims do their job today. Looking for a big one for Holland today - he needs to get back on track!

Not getting on track, in my opinion, will be BU home attendance. Who could sit in Case when there's some serious NFL games on tap today (including my Titans!)? Hey schedulers, how bout no more Sunday afternoon games until NFL season is over?! So even I'll be watching the online feed a little later today. Nobody tell me what happens!

The 08-09 schedule is out... and I'm already excited about making Notre Dame jokes

Here's the list of teams we hope to belittle in this space after the Terriers beat them during this upcoming season:

11/14 - vs. George Washington
11/18 - @ Bucknell
11/22 - vs. St. Peter's
11/25 - @ Northeastern
11/29 - @ Mount St. Mary's
12/3 - @ Harvard
12/6 - vs. Marshall
12/10 - vs. Yale
12/13 - @ Notre Dame
12/21 - vs. Delaware
12/29 - @ Cornell
1/2 - vs. Holy Cross

It's an interesting list. Much weaker than last year's; we effectively swapped out St. Bonnie, St. Joe's and UMass in exchange for Mount St. Mary, Bucknell and Cornell. We replaced the A-10 with the NEC, Patriot and Ivy - significant downgrade in talent.

But you know what? It's fine with me. Last year we only won 3 out-of-conference games, and if this schedule helps us win more than that, I'm all for it. I was really excited about last season, and that losing streak at the beginning of the year was a real turd in the punchbowl. And there is probably only one game on that whole list that is a near-certain loss (ND). The rest are eminently winnable.