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?

Buckle up, everybody: The Iona Preview

Tonight we arrive, as KW so eloquently put it, at Milepost 0. First game, beginning of the journey that is the 09-10 BU Terriers season.

The Terriers are not making it easy on themselves. Already, Scott Brittain and BJ Bailey are out with concussions. That means were going to have a VERY thin bench for the next few days. More importantly, our youngest Terrier is off to a bumpy and painful start, and any more concussions for one of our senior captains could bring his long-term health into question. I don't even know if Trent Green had 3 concussions. Be safe, Scotty.

On paper, BU should dominate Iona College tonight, right? We won in last year's Bracketbuster, we didn't graduate any of our big scorers, they lost 2 out of their top 3 scorers and they are picked 9th out of 10 in the MAAC. My expectations would normally be for a win of blowout proportions.

But then you account for the injuries on our side (Iona is a little banged up too, but not as bad). And that we're on the road. And it's our guys' first game under Coach Pat Chambers' new system. And they have a lot of tall men.

It'll be a good first test, and a nice tune-up for the GW home opener. And hopefully a win!

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.

"Bracketbuster" (note the quotations)

Our "bracketbuster" match-up has been announced, and we will play St. Peters on Feb. 23rd. This is one of four bracketbuster games for America East, bringing some slight recognition to our conference. Of course, looking at all of the matchups now, there are a hell of a lot of bracketbuster matchups. It'd be sad if we had less than, say, the MAAC. Which we do.

Anyway, St. Peters is 2-10 in the MAAC, and 5-17 overall. Their signature win is against Rutgers.

This match-up leads me to believe that the NCAA is really stretching for Bracketbusters, because I seriously find it hard to believe that either of these teams' brackets will be busted by this game. In fact, it's actually quite obvious that the only way either team will make the tourney in March is with a win of each team's respective conference tournament.

But it's always fun to pretend. See you in wherever the hell St. Peters is.