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!

First win means Narragansett Beers all around!

Great win for the Terriers last night in Little Rhody. I honestly thought we had no chance to take out the Rams, who proved to be just as inept as the NFL version.

My last trip to Rhode Island's Ryan Center was the first round of the 2004 NIT, which was a majorly disappointing 28-point loss.

Yesterday's trip was much more satisfying. DJ Irving was unstoppable - he was just too quick to the basket. Darryl Partin made a few very tough shots and was steady at the free throw line - a major upgrade from the Cleveland State game. Travis Robinson continues to improve, making some big threes along with some pretty layups and dishes. But the revelation of the season continues to be Patrick Hazel. I remarked to some fellow BU fans at the game that I think Pat might be our best player. Now, maybe that's not true... DJ could probably play on a Big East team, and Pat already proved that he couldn't. But Pat might be our most important. He again showed some ferocity in the post.

There was one play that I thought was the turning point of the game. BU was down by 9 points with about 14 minutes left in the second half, and the team was dragging a little. Darryl missed a short jumper, and there were 3 Rams surrounding the rebound. But Pat comes flying out of nowhere, above everyone else, and muscles to get the board. Then he put it back up, making the basket and getting fouled. It was a great play, and got BU fired up. From that point on, the Terriers were the more energized and tenacious team, and it showed on the scoresheet.

Best part of this win was the free Providence Journal newspaper that came with our hotel room, which had a full two pages of BU-URI in the front of the sports section. Woo-hoo for Terrier analysis in print!

Back to the Ryan Center today for the former-AE Hofstra Dutchmen Pride.

#9 Egregiously Omitted Summer Story: 2011-12 Schedule released

Every year, we wait patiently to see what kind of goodies the OOC-Fairy has left in our Schedule Basket.  And this year, after many years of waiting, she has left us a particularly tasty morsel:  a date with our ugly step-sister up the road, the Eagles of Boston College (sucks!).

In real life, a date with a maiden this hideous would be the stuff nightmares are made of... she shows up late, her breath smells of garlic and funyuns, she has a zit the size of North Dakota on the old honker, she won't STFU about her lame-ass job, and to top if off she won't even let you get to second base in the backseat of your Honda on the way home.  In short, she sucks.

But in college basketball world, this is our dream date.  Our Terriers have wanted a piece of these Beagles since BC cut off the series in 2004 after a too-close-for-comfort 6-point victory at home.  And whether this change of heart is due to their new head coach or just a much-needed sack enlargement procedure, we're glad it's happening this year.  Why?  Because they are going to SUCK even more than usual!!  In the traditional sense, of losing games.  On their web site's front page alone, it trumpets the news of 1) being picked 12th a.k.a. LAST in their conference-- and 2) squeaking out their exhibition game by 4 points over something called American International College.  I don't want to get ahead of myself, but this could be a real fun year to face Chestnut Hill University.

The schedule also provides other delights.  We travel down to Austin to play Texas on the Longhorn Network, cause of much chagrin amongst Texas A&M, the Pac-12 and other parties. For some reason we travel to Philly THREE SEPARATE TIMES, to play at Villanova, St. Joe's and LaSalle - here's hoping the boys don't gorge themselves on cheesesteaks.  We play a very solid slate of good mid-major programs, highlighted by the 3-day Legends Classic against Rhode Island, Hofstra and Cleveland State - I will be personally lobbying hard for a road trip to that one.  And of course, we open against our rivals from the dirty side of Boston.

Here is the out-of-conference schedule in its entirety:

11/11/11 vs. Northeastern
11/13/11 at Texas
11/20/11 at Cornell
11/25/11 vs. Cleveland State
11/26/11 at Rhode Island
11/27/11 vs. Hofstra
11/30/11 vs. Delaware
12/03/11 at Boston College
12/07/11 at Saint Joseph's
12/10/11 vs. Harvard
12/13/11 at Villanova
12/22/11 vs. Bucknell
12/29/11 at La Salle
12/31/11 at Quinnipiac

30 for 30

The depleted Terriers took care of bidness against lowly Hartford on Saturday, 84-70.

Most notable about the game was the 30-point performances from Corey Lowe and John Holland. Yeah, in the same game! We've never done that before. These two superstars scored exactly three-quarters of our total output. Relying so much on two guys is never a great idea, but thanks to our bench situation it may be necessary this year. We won't need 30 from both of them every time, but we'll need to have good performances.

Before the Hartford game, I did some research that said winning the game meant we should be cleaning up in the AE Tournament this year. I'll admit, it's a bit of a stretch. But check this out. Corey Lowe won the AE Player of the Week for his 28- and 31-point games this week, giving BU a total of three winners of the award so far this year (Jake O'Brien and Holland have already won it). The AE did this research on the other teams this decade that had three different players win AE Player of the Week in the same year:

Boston University (2009-10)
John Holland, Corey Lowe, Jake O'Brien

UMBC (2007-08)
Ray Barbosa, Jay Greene, Cavell Johnson, Darryl Proctor

Albany (2006-07)
Jason Siggers, Brent Wilson, Jamar Wilson

Albany (2005-06)
Lucious Jordan, Jason Siggers, Jamar Wilson, Kirsten Zoellner

Boston University (2001-02)
Chaz Carr, Jason Grochowalski, Matt Turner

Hofstra (2000-01)
Rick Apodaca, Roberto Gittens, Jason Hernandez, Norman Richardson

Every single one of those teams (except this year's BU Terriers, of course) won the America East that year and went to the Big Dance. OK come on, surely that has got to mean something, RIGHT??