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.

There Will Be Blood: The UConn Preview

In between last week's Northeastern game and today's UConn game was a game against Harvard that occurred precisely in the middle my holiday travel, hence the lack of preview/wrap-up. Yes, as a devoted fan of BU hoops I demanded of a very understanding girlfriend that we pull the car off the highway and find a bar with free WiFi, but the game was also precisely in the middle of my other favorite team, the Tennessee Titans, producing one of the more improbable comebacks in NFL history.

So, in the middle of The Office Beer Bar & Grill in Morristown, NJ, I had one eye (but no ears) on the Terriers's game against the Smarties. First the Titans were up and the Terriers were down big in the first half. Then the Titans gave up the lead but BU streaked to a double-digit lead in the second half. Finally, as the Titans made history BU ran out of gas and left Case Gym with an uninspiring 78-70 loss to an admittedly decent Harvard Crimson squadron.

It's harder than you think to watch your two favorite teams at once, but I did pick up a few things about the Terriers game. One was that Corey had a rough game - not only did he go 0-7 but had bad turnovers on two consecutive possessions in the final minutes that led to fast break dunks and thwarted any possibly comeback. Real daggers in the heart.

Another thing that I noticed is we are really hurting for bodies. BJ and Valdas were not playing due to various ailments. Tunde even got into the game, and made a nice steal and basket before the end of the first half.

This is going to be the big story going into tonight's matchup against UConn. In addition to those two guys plus Scott Brittain, the Hot Dog says Corey will now be sidelined with an injury.

Are you kidding me??? We will barely have enough guys to field a starting five. Forget that this is on TV against the #13 team in the country... we couldn't beat Binghamton with this many injuries.

OK, that isn't true. But this will be a slaughter. I am afraid to admit that I am hosting a BU Alumni in DC Club game-watch at a bar tonight. There are casual BU alums who are almost never exposed to BU basketball and will be turned off from the team because of tonight! We lost to #21 Georgia Tech by 18... we'll be lucky to lose to UConn by twice that.

How Bout Some Icing on the Cake: The Georgia Tech Preview

We all know this tournament is already "Mission Accomplished" - the win over Indiana was awesome and that's as much as any of us could ask for.

I'm guessing Coach Pat Chambers is not satisfied however. He'd like to finish off this trip to San Juan with a stunner over the #21 ranked Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. BU last played a ranked team when they almost knocked off Notre Dame on the road last year. The Terriers led almost the entire game.

Tech has looked pretty good. They were upset by Dayton on Thursday, but disposed of George Mason on Friday. We saw the Mason game, and Derrick Favors is the real deal - one of the best frosh in the country. And Gani Lawal could have been a 1st round NBA pick last year, if he didn't return to school. We ran into some George Mason fans in Old San Juan on Friday night, and all they could talk about was how "Georgia Tech's got some biiiig boys."

So can we do it? You've got to wonder how well we will do inside. We won the Indiana game by rebounding. We've got to crash the boards at least as well to have a chance in this one, or the shooting has got to be lights out.

A Big Win in Puerto Rico!

My expectations for the Puerto Rico Tip-Off were not high before coming down here. I thought we could compete, but with such a stacked field I did not think we'd win a game.

By now you've heard that the Terriers did just that, staging a thrilling come-from-behind victory over the storied Indiana Hoosiers. Maybe you listened on the radio stream, or even followed along with my fevered series of tweets down the stretch. But this was a game that made the trip to Puerto Rico well worth its while. We didn't just travel here for the fun of watching the Terriers, we came here and witnessed something great.

BU was behind the whole game, due to another pretty poor shooting performance, but always remained within striking distance. In the first half, we got in a hole and clawed our way back to within 2 points just before halftime... unfortunately, IU hit a buzzer-beating 3 to make that deficit 5 again. They had held Corey Lowe scoreless in the first half, but rebounding kept us in the game.

In the second half, we hung around and made our move in the final minutes thanks to huge 3-pointers by Lowe, Carlos Strong, Tyler Morris and John Holland. Jake O'Brien, with a double-double, and Jeff Pelage led BU to a 52-32 rebounding advantage over the Hoosiers. Strong's only bucket of the game, a 3 that tied the game for the first time at 63, made the BU fans go bonkers. Clutch free throws by JOB and Corey kept us up until a lay-in by Jake with a minute remaining (off a pretty feed from Tyler) put us up by 4. Indiana couldn't hit any desperation shots after that, and the rest is history.


The keys to the win were certainly REBOUNDING, the lack of FOUL TROUBLE and Indiana's refusal and/or inability to institute a full court PRESS. That press had been utilized by the 3 teams that already beat us to take us out of our offensive rhythm, and it worked. Maybe Indiana just didn't have the athletic horses to take such a tack.

Sherrod Smith and Valdas Sirutis played meaningful minutes, and BJ Bailey played his first collegiate minutes, even scoring on a lovely fast break. He looked good out there.

Coach Chambers has that monkey off his back, and got his first head coaching win. He's got the team excited and disciplined, and as the team made their way off the court he led them in a simultaneous salute to the BU fans in attendance. Awesome moment.

As for the High Roller and I, we found a cool little hole-in-the-wall pub to celebrate in Old San Juan (we've gotten pretty good at ordering beers in Spanish). We get to spend today regaining our voices before taking on #21 ranked Georgia Tech on Sunday.

But this win over Indiana, our first over a BCS conference team since Michigan in 2004, is one we'll remember for a long time!