...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.

A Familiar First-Place Match-up: The Vermont Preview

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).

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)

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.

Basking in The Prestige

When ESPN is bored, it loves to rank things... mascots, titletowns, whatever. Since there's nothing college basketball-y going on now, they decided to rank the "prestige" of every D-I college basketball team.

Nobody knows what the hell this means. It might mean how successful the team has been over the past couple decades, but then why don't they just say that?

Anyway I'm not gonna complain about it because BU somehow scored startlingly high on the prestige scale.

America East:
108. Boston University
159. Vermont
T-256. UMBC
270. Hartford
T-278. Maine
297. New Hampshire

Others of note:
69. Siena
T-70. Boston College
93. Drexel
100. George Mason
T-111. Providence
T-115. Holy Cross
T-118. Northeastern
123. George Washington
T-145. Delaware
T-183. Hofstra
T-210. Towson
T-284. Harvard

Highest of the America East (Albany, Bing and Stony Brook haven't been D-I long enough to qualify), higher than 4 out of the 5 teams that left AE for the Colonial, higher than all but 1 team from the MAAC, higher than most of the A-10, Pac-10 and Conference USA.

Most importantly, higher than our main rivals NORTHEASTERN and VERMONT.

How did they come up with this? Well, the system put a high premium on winning the regular season title (higher than winning the conference tournament even). And it gave just as many points for an NIT berth as it did for an NCAA berth. That means those 3 years in a row where BU finished #1 in the regular season but lost in the tourney were BETTER than winning the tourney and going to the NCAA. It also subtracted points for losing seasons, of which BU has not had many.

So, all hail BU, the most prestigious team in the America East (AKA the tallest midget in the world).

We're a nationally recognized school!!

Straight from the front page of ESPN.com's mens basketball page. Too bad the cover story was about UMass and we look like we are affraid of the ball in this picture. Still, bad publicity is still publicity.


Thought I'd try something new, so here is my Boxline of the Week:

## Player Name            FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT
22 Strong, Carlos...... f  6-10   5-9    1-1    0  5  5  
    
   PF  TP  A TO BLK S MIN
   1  18  6  1  0  0  38

And, here's my Boxline of the Weak:

## Player Name            FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT
01 Konate, Ibrahim.....    0-1    0-0    0-0    0  0  0  

   PF  TP  A TO BLK S MIN
   0   0  0  3  0  0   8

Both came in our Narrow loss to Holy Cross. Look for this everyweek, this is something that I'm going to try to keep going.

Now it REALLY starts

It wasn't BU's finest non-conference effort. Here is a quick recap:

BU was predicted by everyone from ESPN to Tiger Beat to win the AE... and then promptly put up a 3-9 OOC record.

Tyler Morris missed all but three of the games, and even when he came back, he wasn't the Tyler we know and love. Stress injuries like his take a long time to rehab, so he continues to improve. But we need him if we hope to win the conference as predicted. As others have said, even Tyler at 75% helps BU more than hurts them.

Marques Johnson and John Holland develop into solid role players. Finally given playing time, Marques has run an efficient offense by limiting his turnovers. And Holland has shown an explosiveness of offense and could turn into a star over the next 2 years.

Corey Lowe missed two games on the Redneck Roadtrip through West Virginia and western Pennsylvania, fueling rumors of his impending exodus to UMass (where else??), then "works out his issues" and starts putting up 20 points per game. What a roller-coaster ride. I sure hope he's with us next year (or even until the end of this year!). No denying he is a great player.

Our top-recruit, Will Creekmore, leaves the team and intends to transfer to Missouri State or TCU or somesuch. I and many others have said that his attitude was to blame, and would have hurt us more than his playing abilities could have helped. Meanwhile, poor Scott Brittain toils alone in the paint, and it's hard not to think of how much better we would be if he had some help in there.

This whirlwind has led to another round of Wolff detractors calling for his job. I still say no matter what, he still always gets the team ready for conference play. I say, let's see what happens this year. I am cautiously optimistic about this team's chances.

And you know what? None of those results so far mean a thing. It all starts today in Binghamton.

(P.S. thanks to the fine folks in Bing's athletic dept for their live streaming video)