Great Brittain

I'll let the High Roller fill our readers in on the finer points of our experience in Boston last weekend (if he can remember any of them), but in the meantime there were two basketball games in the last week that merit mention.

The outcomes were different, and in each case the fortunes of the Terriers hinged on one Scott Brittain. At home against Vermont, Scott helped BU claim a 1 point lead at halftime, only to leave the game early in the second half with his 4th foul, allowing UVM to take command and we never recovered. Ibe went insane in the first half with 3 blocks, almost all in row - which really got the crowd going. John Holland had another really solid game, and Tyler looks like he's finally becoming himself again.

Highlights of this one included relentlessly heckling Vermont's #12 for airballing one shot and then -- I shit you not -- shooting over the shot clock on top of the basket when he was standing in the low block area of the paint. Worst shot I have ever seen in my life. One of their other guys airballed a free throw too, so we let him have it. It was fun to heckle Marqus Blakely too for his lame Mr. T haircut, but it wasn't as fun since he torched us for a double-double and rejected two BU dunks.

Fast forward to last Wednesday at Maine. This was one of BU's best games of the year. They never trailed, played great defense and won the turnover margin by a bunch. Holland, again, was fantastic, but the story was Scott. He went off for a career high 22 points. And the key? He didn't get whistled for his first foul until the last few minutes of the game. Scott really is our only offensive threat in the paint, so keeping him out of foul trouble needs to be a priority in the future.

BU got a nice surprise in the unexpected return of Corey Lowe - kid didn't even practice last week, and all of sudden shows up in Maine ready to ball. Surprised everyone, including the equipment manager, who didn't even bring Corey's #13 jersey on the trip. So, trooper that he is, Corey threw on the #14 and dropped in 7 points in limited minutes.

By the way, if you told me at the beginning of the year that in one game Carlos, Corey and Tyler would combine for 15 points and BU still won the game.... I would have punched you in the face and told you to never lie to me again.

Honey, can you pick up some Windex on your way home from work?

The Terriers need some serious help in the glass-cleaning department. In fact, the Case Gym glass is so filthy it seems like it hasn't been cleaned all year (at least not by BU).

Figure this: BU has 4 "big men" (although at times that seems like a stretch) - Scott Brittain, Vlad Sirutis, Max Gotzler and Ibe Konate. During the 9-point loss to Hartford on 1/12, that Fearsome Foursome gathered a grand total of THREE rebounds. Not three apiece, not an average of three between them... but THREE total. And all four of them got playing time! Kudos to Ibe for pulling down 33% of the group's rebounds in just 4 minutes of action.

The group responded to that performance with a FIVE rebound effort this past Wednesday against Albany (this time, Ibe didn't see any action). It was sad to watch that display, as the disparity on the boards was 38-20 in favor of Albany - missed shots seemed to head directly into the hands of our big men, then be promptly taken away by Albany and deposited into the basket.

These guys should be averaging 4 rebounds per game EACH, not as a group. Might this problem (ranked 8 out of 9 in rebounding margin) have a little to do with our losses this year?

Murmurs of Basketball Stuff

It was a relief to see BU remembered how to score points. They nearly reached their previous games total by half-time as they outplayed UNH to win 82-72. Corey Lowe ended up with thirty points after scoring the first 12 points for BU, all on threes. Carlos Strong had 14 points, and Max Gotzler had 11, a career high.

Jesus, where to being.

First of all, the starting line-up:

Max Gotzler, Matt Wolff, Valdus Sirutis, Tyler Morris, and John Holland.

Weird, right? But it somehow worked. I'm still trying to figure it out.

Corey Lowe took 22 shots. That's a hell of a lot but it seemed to work so I say keep doing it.

Ibe and Marques Johnson barely played. 12 Minutes between the two of them. I'm sure that had something to do with how well we played.

Tyler took a lot of shots, and missed a lot. But he's been trying to shoot his way out of his slump, and he will, as long as he keeps shooting. He still managed 10 points, with 8 from the free throw line. He's starting to get back into, and I like that Wolff isn't overworking him too soon.

John Holland had six steals, showing how much this kid hustles on every play. We need someone like him on the court as much as possible. He is sick on defense. Defensive Player of the Year in a couple years, I'm calling it right now.

As a team, we out-rebounded UNH, and I can't remember the last time we did that. 36!

And how 'bout that Max Gotzler? He played 35 minutes! And judging by the box score, he didn't do too badly either. But there's a reason he got so much playing time. Scott Britain didn't play today, and it's much worse than we could have thought possible:

BU, which now holds a 52-6 advantage over UNH in conference play, was playing without leading rebounder and third-leading scorer Scott Brittain, who pulled a gluteus muscle in practice Tuesday.

I quoted the recap from ESPN because I didn't want to have to think of a way to say that, but it sounds bad. I have no idea if this is a short-term or long-term injury, but if someone knows, or if anyone knows specifically what is going on with Scott, leave a comment.

Anyway, this was a big win for us. We needed it bad after four straight losses. We go hammered by SUNY (I started using SUNY when talking about Binghamton because it was getting too confusing with two BU's. Plus I think they hate the name SUNY), and we were in danger of starting conference play 0-2. It's good to see some life in them. I hope they keep this up.

And around the America East? What a strange couple of days.

Sunday:

BU took a serious beating from SUNY, who I had predicted only minutes earlier would finish 8th in the conference. That was a real wake up call.

After looking so sharp the entire game, Vermont loses in overtime to Albany by a point. What an exciting game that was.

Stony Brook totally hands it to Maine. Didn't think they had it in them.

Wednesday:

Down 7 at the half, Hartford rallies back with 48 points in the seconds half edge out Binghamton by one point.

UMBC crushes Vermont 78-60. Right after Vermont looked so sharp at Albany, too.

And the standings look incredibly odd right now. Everyone has at least one win, except Maine, and everyone has at least one loss, except Hartford, who only played one conference game, and UMBC, who is 3-0. I think I can honestly say that right now, it looks like almost anyone could win this conference.

And UMBC? Didn't see this coming. Hodges is having himself a great season, and he's got a great team around him. Yeah, it's early, but I can't recall UMBC ever having a decent season. Maybe this is the season they finally make some noise.

Too early to know too much, but we know this: this is going to be one ridiculous season.

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.