Fearlessly looking into the future

There's a rule when you have a "basketblog" that you have to make end of the season picks and predictions. So fine let's get the boring ones out of the way.

1st Team All-Conference
Marqus Blakely - Vermont
John Holland - Boston U.
Darryl Proctor - UMBC
Corey Lowe - Boston U.
DJ Rivera - Binghamton

Rookie of the Year
Jake O'Brien - Boston U.
Defensive Player of the Year
Marques Cox - Stony Brook
Coach of the Year
Bill Herrion - New Hampshire
Player of the Year
Marqus Blakely - Vermont

The rest of them, 2nd/3rd team, All-Defense... eh, who has the time.

Here's how the tourney should go down:

I don't care what anybody says, this is how I think it will shake out. Binghamton is a paper tiger - you can't win that many extremely close games without eventually losing one of them. BU over Vermont might be a stretch, but not if they are missing Mike Trimboli - who at last check is still "questionable" to play in the tournament.

OK, now for the important predictions.

1) First coach to get T'd up: Randy Monroe, UMBC
2) Least fans in attendance: Tie - BU and Maine
3) Bing player attracting the most heckling: Tiki Mayben
4) Average age of Vermont fans, including dance team: 67
5) Most likely to go to overtime: UNH-SBU
6) Biggest blowout: Hartford over Maine
7) Number of Sparks consumed by our group of 5: 13
8) Weather for our Sat morning tailgate: Rain, of course.
9) Minutes Matt Wolff is on the bench in Round 1: 6
10) Tournament MVP: John Holland, BU

Agree? Disagree?

Tourney Time: UMBC, we comin for you

The Terriers seemed to be ending the regular season on a high note, then almost a disastrous note, then finally on a relieved note. But eventually, BU finished off the spunky Hawks of Hartford in OT and did not put all of their fans on suicide watch.

The highlight of this game was, obviously, The Rod. We here at BU Hoops Blog have been clamoring for The Rod all season long and especially when the injuries hit, but DWolff went for a miniscule rotation instead of adding Sherrod to it. It's gotta hurt when your coach would risk severe exhaustion and burnout of his stars just so he doesn't have to put you in the game. But The Rod proved him wrong with stellar play, subbing for the quickly injured Matt Wolff.

The latest reports say Matt has recovered from his concussion and is back to practice, but will Sherrod still play a part in the Terriers' first round game? Luckily, we're playing the only team with less depth than us.

UMBC beat Albany on Sunday and earned a date with us. This worked out really well in a lot of ways:

• We get to miss the host school, Albany, who even though they suck will have tons of people rooting for them.
• UMBC's aforementioned depth troubles.
• BU handled them twice already this year, even if one of the games went to 2OT.
  
• We avoid Stony Brook, who beat us already and is my pick for a big-time tourney upset.

As the #3 seed, things work out well except that we meet up with Vermont in the semis. But, in order to be the best, you have to beat the best - and I'd rather get a crack at them in Albany in front of a semi-neutral setting. I'd feel more comfortable at Binghamton in a final than at Vermont.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. I like the idea of knocking out the defending champs. Retrievers, you're up.

The End of the Road: The Hartford Preview

The end of this season is a little bit anti-climactic. Today's game against Hartford at The Greek could not mean less. The 3 seed is locked up. Hartford is so bad that they are guaranteed to be a non-factor in the tournament. We beat them by like 30 last time.

The only thing that means anything today is that it's Senior Day. Today we say goodbye to 3 guys who will (hopefully) graduate and who will not put on the red and white beyond next weekend (plus whatever happens with post-season for us, if anything).

Sam Tully - I can honestly say I have never seen the kid play. He hasn't gotten into a game this year, but had a rebound last year as well as a steal. But today, he will get into today's game and make his family proud. Let's see if he can but the biscuit in the basket.

Marques Johnson - I like MJ. He's a good backup PG and pretty much does his part when he's asked to. He was never a scorer but always had a good A/TO ratio when he was in. I remember hearing rumors about him possibly wanting to transfer a couple years ago, and I'm glad he didn't. I'll have two great memories about MJ. One was the career game he had this year when he stepped in for the suspended Corey Lowe against Albany - he played all 40 minutes and came away with 7 points, 7 assists and 8 rebounds... and 0 turnovers. The other memory I'll have is when we went to to Holiday Classic at Madison Square Garden. We were taking the PATH train back to Hoboken after a tough OT loss to St. John's, and one of the train operators noticed our BU shirts. He told he us he had a nephew on the team - it was MJ's uncle. He told us how proud he was to have him playing ball up in Boston, and we told he we loved MJ.

Matt Wolff - Matt is probably the most controversial player we've had in our program. As the coach's son, he gets a lot of scrutiny. And since he doesn't score much, he catches a lot of flack for all the minutes he plays. After a very promising freshman year (ALLLL the way back in 2004-05), he had really bad luck with knee injuries. But since then, he has played in 60 straight games and has quietly been a solid player, whether anyone wants to admit it. For all the shit he has taken, I don't believe would have been as successful this year had Matt not been on the team.

Thanks for the memories, guys.

A Night at the Pelaggio

You know, I lied last night when I wrote that we really couldn't learn anything from the Maine game. We learned that Jeff Pelage is going to be a fun player to watch over the next 4 years.

I have to remind myself that this was against Maine, but JP (or "Busta" as the Burger Man calls him) put on a fine show last night. After he seemingly kept scoring 9 points and 8 rebounds every time he got decent minutes... he finally broke through to double digits in BOTH categories, resulting in his first career double-double: 10 pts, 12 rebounds. Not to be outdone, John Holland had a dub-dub with 20 and 10. Jake O'Brien had 18 and 9... falling obviously 1 board short. What's crazy is I specifically remember when Jake and John both had 9 rebounds, and one of the last defensive possessions they were in the game, a rebound came down and both grabbed it at the same time, but Jake was closer. I remember thinking, 'Nice, both freshman are gonna have double-doubles!' And then John just ripped the ball out of Jake's hands, and Jake kind of backed off. So John Holland literally took a double-double right out of JOB's hands. I guess that'll be a lesson to him about why he should be more aggressive on the boards.

But back to Pelage, and speaking of aggression on the boards... he was a lunatic out there when he saw a missed shot coming his way. On several occasions he knocked down other BU players when he grabbed a rebound. This happened to Scott Brittain and either Matt Wolff or JOB I think. It was awesome and hilarious. He would not be denied.

In all his interviews, DW says he just needs to work harder and it will just come to him. He could be a force inside if he puts his mind to it.

Not as bad as it seems: The Stony Brook Preview

That last game against Binghamton was a tough one, but after reflecting on it a bit I don't think it was too bad.

Corey had a rough game. He shot 2-for-15 and missed two chances to win the game with under 30 seconds. I bet he felt crummy about it afterward.

But Corey's not going to let that happen more than once or maybe twice in a season. He's too good. We lost to the first-place, supposedly "best," team in the conference by 1 point. Our two best players, who average 18 apiece, came up with 17 combined. This is not the norm.

And, after getting down big in the first half, the team showed a lot of grit in clawing all the way back to take the lead and had a chance to win. That kind of fortitude hasn't happened every time (i.e. both Vermont games) and I love to see it. Props to Scott Brittain for his best game of the year - one rebound short of a dub-dub and tying his career high for points.

Two strange things we saw in last game. Matt Wolff sat for most of the second half in favor Marques Johnson, and Wolff's focus on continually pushing the ball inside rather than taking outside shots. I'll be looking out to see if those trends continue tonight...

..against Stony Brook. Please God, our team cannot take another 60 minute game. Win or lose, let's have this one end at 40. At this point, we're almost assured of the #3 tournament seed and that extra rest might be more important than the W.

Stony Brook has been good and is threatening to bring its white jerseys to the AE tourney for the first time. They just took UVM to overtime, yes the same team that just beat us by 28.

If nothing else, this is our last road game of the year and it gets easier from here on out.

And then it all came crashing down..

You know, I could just delete everything I wrote in the 24 hours preceding the last game about BU being unstoppable, but that wouldn't really be sporting.

So, the Vermont game was a bust. A huge bust. The most ginormous bust. It was Phil Mickelson's bust. Vermont seems to be the one team we cannot beat right now. They were the last team to beat us before our winning streak, and they ended it.

The remarkable thing was how similar this game was to the last Vermont game. We got big early leads, let them back into a slight lead, struggled to keep it close for a while in the second half, Matt Wolff gets frustrated by fouls, then Vermont runs away with it.

The problem in this one was mental mindset. Just like last time, Matt lost his composure and started picking up stupid fouls. This time, John Holland got extremely frustrated too, so much so that Coach Wolff had to take him out of the game with several minutes left.

The Catmounters played hard aggressive defense, which was the reason for their win. It caused 21 Terrier turnovers. I'm surprised there weren't more fouls called, considering how much contact they were initiating on defense.

Bottom line is the we won't win the conference without being able to beat Vermont (nor would we deserve to). We'll hopefully have one more chance at that. For now, it's time to get Phil Mickelson's boobs out of our heads and concentrate on Binghamton.

Cock punch: The UMBC Review

I got to see my second in-person BU game of the season, and it was a good one -- not as good as the 2OT UMBC game from two weeks ago, but that's probably a good thing.

Considering this game was directly up against BU's Beanpot game, I figure there were exactly 6 BU fans who saw this game... and they were all in the stands at the RAC (I don't think Comcast SportsNet or MASN got the BU audience they were hoping for). It was our group of 3, plus Corey Lowe's uncle and his ladyfriend and two other BU fans, one of whom was wearing a hockey jersey. Now, we all know my feelings on this, but I appreciate his dedication. But if you're out there reading this dude, can you just explain it to me: you're obviously a huge BU hockey fan, huge enough to wear a hockey jersey to a bball game... and the BEANPOT was going on! I'm baffled.

C_Lowe's uncle is The Man. We recognized each other from when we met at past BU-UMBC games, since he lives in Maryland somewhere. After the game I tried to talk him into going to Albany for the conference tournament, I may have even offered him a ride, I can't remember.

Anyway, the game was highly entertaining. BU was wearing the home whites, since UMBC was doing a "Blackout the RAC" dealio and wore their black unis. When we got to the game a little late due to the famous DC traffic snarls, BU was losing 16-6. We sat down directly behind the BU bench, and the team immediately went on a 19-0 run. Obviously we were the spark that the team needed. Well, either us or Jake O'Brien, who had a career high 25 points.

UMBC kept it close for most of the second half, until we pulled away nicely at the end. UMBC happens to play even less guys than we do, so foul trouble was a factor. The turning point, and the most exciting part of the game, is when with about 4 minutes left UMBC frosh Chauncey Gilliam punched Matt Wolff in the nuts. For realz. They were lined up next to each other for a free throw, and in the process of "boxing out" Gilliam threw a left fist behind him directly into Matt's pills. Problem was, nobody in the arena saw any of this, including the refs, we just saw Matt writhing around holding about a pound of Aunt Betty's nut butter. Then Matt got fired up, Orlando Vandross got fired up, and the refs went to to video tape. Indeed, they said, Gilliam sent Matt on a trip to Bangkok, and so they ejected him. I couldn't see any of this, but we just heard massive booing from the student section. Unless they were saying Booo-urns. Anyway, I Tivo'd the game and checked out the reply, and they made the right call - it was a really bad cheap shot.

The crowd got so fired up that Matt missed his first free throw, which made them even more fired up. I was slightly worried about our 7 point lead. But then Johnny Holland came through with back-to-back 3-pointers, complete with shushing motions to the crowd, and everyone on UMBC except for Darryl Proctor lost the will to keep playing. It was a blowout after that.

Nice win on the road for our boys.

A well-deserved break

The Terriers have been sleeping in their dorms for the past two days, and today they'll finally get back to practice after the most exhausting week I can imagine anyone ever having, except for maybe Michael Phelps circa August 2008.

The Terriers have won 4 in a row to stand atop the AE standings, the most impressive on paper being the blowout road win against Binghamton, who is also tied for 1st. But each of the wins stood out: the big comeback win at Maine, after being down by 18 in the first half; the deja vu game against UMBC only 2 days after the longest game in Boston history; and, of course, the longest game in Boston history.

When I planned my Boston trip this year, I wanted to combine it with several things:

• ** A 3-day weekend (thanks Marty!), which actually turned into a 4-day weekend in the DC area (thanks Barack!)
• ** A BU hockey game, which turned out to be a win over BC (thanks Kim for the front-row seats!)
• ** The AFC and NFC Championship weekend, which has turned into an annual ritual at T's Pub (I refuse to call it by the new name, despite the increased prices for the same mediocre food)
• ** A BU basketball game

Everything was working out in the planning, except that the hoops game was against Stony Brook. Don't get me wrong, I was excited about the prospect of seeing any BU basketball game, expecially at The Roof -- but having it be the Seawolves was a very "ehhhh"-inducing thought.

Obviously, I couldn't have been more delighted about how the game actually turned out.

Though I respect the current student section, we snagged front-row seats where we used to have the students -- Section 4, directly across from the BU bench. Truth be told, the majority of the game was sort of forgettable. I remember thinking at half-time, "Wow, this game is going so fast. I can't believe I came all this way for a BU-Stony Brook game and now it's almost over." Later, in the second half, Stony Brook kept chipping away at our league, and I started thinking, "Oh my God, we could lose to Stony Brook today."

Stony Brook actually took the lead briefly at the end of the second half, and after that everything was a blur. Scott Brittain made a spinning post move and got fouled on a critical possession in the final minute, and people started getting raucous. Then came the ridiculous buzzer-beater 3-pointer on the other side, which shut most people up but I was ecstatic because it meant that I didn't have to go home yet.

The next hour was filled with jumping out of my chair into the aisle every time John Holland or Corey Lowe made a huge 3-pointer, and slumping back into my seat every time Stony Brook answered. Holding my breath when Corey went coast-to-coast to tie it with 4 seconds left. Matt Wolff's rimmed-out half court heave at the second OT buzzer was a heart-in-the-throat moment. It's also when the ladies that accompanied our group started wondering when the damn game was going to be overwith.

When we were down by 5 in the second OT, I thought it was over but Corey put the entire team on his back and forced a fourth. When we were up by 7 in the fourth OT, I thought it was over but Stony Brook clawed back once again, and the girls got that Oh-God-Here-Comes-Number-Five look in their eyes. But a SBU put-back (which really should have gone in) rimmed out, and there was joy. BU wins, 99-97.

Corey decided during the overtimes that he was not letting BU lose the game. It was amazing to watch. John made some ridiculous rainbow 3-pointers. There was some fun jawing back and forth between Corey and the talented Stony Brook freshmen.

The game made national news, especially since Johnny played all 60-minutes. Bob Ryan was in the house, and you could tell he wanted the damn game to end, but he came out the next day with a good story in the Globe.

But what totally distinguished this extraordinary athletic event is that this wasn't merely your, pardon the expression, "ordinary" four-overtime game. This was one of the most competitive strings of overtimes any two teams have played.

Jeff Goodman of Fox Sports called up to interview John:

"I'm definitely a little tired," said Holland, who finished with 29 points and seven boards in the win. "It was a battle. I was just looking for ways to stay energetic and motivated."

Kyle Whelliston at Mid-Majority weighed in with the numerical implications of BU's recent extra sessions:

A lot of people sent this one in, and we'll get to another mailbag soon I promise once things get settled down again, but Boston University certainly has played its share of overtime games lately. Last night at the venerable and historic Roof, the Terriers outlasted America East champions UMBC in an 80-77 double-OT thriller-chiller. This game just three days after a four-overtime win over Stony Brook. John Holland played all 60 minutes!

Add in earlier OT wins over George Washington and Bucknell, and BU has played eight overtime periods this year. It probably doesn't surprise you to know that that leads the nation, but there are three previously tied teams with six: William & Mary, Idaho State and Bucknell. And there are the 129 squads that haven't played any extra periods at all.

Boston University has already tied last year's national high in overtime periods with about two months to go in the season -- Quinnipiac played eight of them in 2007-08. BU's next OT period would match the endurance kings of recent memory, the Indiana State Sycamores of 2005-06. They played nine extra frames.

ESPN Radio called after the game to talk to Coach Wolff, and I still haven't heard it since I don't have ESPN.com Insider. The game was mentioned at the end of SportsCenter and was a headline on ESPN.com's men's hoop page for a few days.

All said, this was the most intense basketball game I've ever been at. I'm really glad I didn't change the trip to Boston just because of Stony Brook. Everyone who was there will remember this one for a looooooong time.

But the Terriers forgot about it quickly and closed out the win with two wins after that, including 2 more OT's (ho-hum) against UMBC and the comeback in Maine. The team showed it could show some grit when the going got tough and win some close games. The most important thing now is keeping up that momentum and turning it into more wins. Right after the team wakes up from it's well-deserved rest.

Back To My Roots: The Binghamton Preview

Tough loss to take, last time out at The Greek. BU, and by BU I mean John Holland, played pretty well in the first half, building up a big lead. But at the end of the half, Vermont started doing full court press pretty much every time and it started working. They kept this up for the entire second half, and we had no answer.

The lead kept ssssssssssslipping away, and we were helpless. It was so obvious we were helpless against the press that when we were down 5, it felt like 25 and I knew there was no way we were coming back. Dennis Wolff called it "caving in" but I think they just ran out of gas.

The turning point, I believe, was the stoppage in play after Marqus Blakely stole the ball from Matt Wolff, Matt tried to grab it back, and then a pile-up ensued on the floor. Anybody else get the feeling that the game felt different before and after that play? I feel like several minutes of standing around got us out of any rhythm we may have been establishing.

But the real problem was handling the press. And here's the reason we couldn't handle the ball coming up the floor: WE HAD NO BALLHANDLERS. When you put 4 forwards out there with 1 guard, teams are going to take advantage.

So here's my plea for today's game in Bing: start Marques Johnson, and let him play. He can handle the rock.

Today I'm back in Boston for the first time in a year, for some kind of alumni weekend+football watching+general drunkenness. Unfortunately the Terriers are not in Boston. So I'm going to do the right thing and watch the game online in the GSU. You can purchase the video from Binghamton here, beware of homer announcers. Question: Does the GSU have free wireless for anyone, or am I going to have to go across to Espresso Royale?

Whose fault is it?

This team is bad right now and looks like it's getting worse... thank God we're not playing NJIT this week. I don't think this season is a lost cause by any stretch -- at this point last year, things looked even more hopeless before it got turned around.

But a change needs to happen, and with the first conference game coming up on Thursday NOW is the time for it to happen.

Whose fault is it when the team falls behind by double-digits during the opening 5 minutes in back-to-back blowout losses due to defense -- the coaches drawing up the scheme and doing the scouting, or the players out there executing (or not executing, as the case may be)?

Whose fault is it that players reach for loose balls and go after rebounds with the intensity of a basset hound rather than a hyperactive Boston terrier -- the young ADULTS who are getting paid (tuition) to exert effort toward winning ballgames, or the coaches who are paid actual money (and in BU's case, a hefty chunk of it) in return for motivating these individuals?

Whose fault is it that the same players, shots and playbook that delivered 83 points on the road against Northeastern, a very good team, could manage barely half that at home 1 month later against Holy Cross, a very poor team?

I'm not inside Dennis Wolff's head. Nor am I inside John Holland's, Tyler Morris's, Scott Brittain's or Matt Wolff's. So I don't know what the problem is. And since the team has been bad for a few weeks now, apparently neither do they. If they did I'm sure the situation would be rectified.

This team has the tools -- players and coaches -- to be good, maybe even great. Nobody's getting fired during this season, and nobody's transferring away. These are the guys we're going to win with or lose with this year.

The real question is -- when is someone going to decide that in the end it really doesn't matter whose fault it is, and just fix it?

OK Maybe the Sky is Falling: The Holy Cross Preview

I cautioned people not to overreact to the back-to-back Notre Dame and Delaware losses. Well, now it might be time to start worrying.

The 30-point shellacking at the hands of an Ivy League school, good as they may be, was upsetting. There were clearly defensive breakdowns very early, and once we got down by 28-5, there was no looking back. I do believe the team was trying hard to get back in the game, but that was an impossible deficit. And they had nobody in the middle to answer their 7-footer.

I salute the efforts of Matt Wolff, who has shown the most hustle during this winning streak, and Tyler Morris, who has been averaging over 10 points over the last 5 games. Jeff Pelage played his best game against Cornell with 8 points and 8 boards.

You gotta wonder about John Holland, who has been absent lately, and Scott Brittain, who is still a non-factor this season. Wolff even benched Holland in favor of Carlos, which didn't have the desired effect on either of them.

Holy Cross has owned us lately - and we've sucked at The Greek this year. Signs point to a rough game for the Terriers, but we'll see if they can put it back together.

Godzilla in OT

Games like the GW game make us wonder why we follow sports as passionately as we do, until a game like the Bucknell game comes along.

John Holland was a MONSTER once the overtime period started, and Bucknell were millions of fleeing Japanese. He dominated. Pounding his chest and screaming after each bucket, you could tell he was not going to allow BU to leave that gym as losers.

That's something we've missed the last couple of years, probably since Rashad Bell left town. Ra-Bell would single-handedly take over games and simply not accept defeat. That toughness factor is back this year, and it's a welcome sight. We would not have won that game last year, there's no doubt about it.

The story of the game, however, hinged on a defensive adjustment made at halftime. Whereas Bucknell was hitting from all over in the first half, they were never allowed to get into any kind of a rhythm in the second. With John Holland on the full-court press and at the top of that zone, the Bison had trouble even finding space and time to take a shot.

Aside from Johnny's rejuvenated play in OT, Corey found his stroke and Jake the Snake got it done again. Tyler, Carlos and Johnny hit their freebies (ahem, Corey). And everybody contributed on defense, especially Matty Wolff who was forced to guard Bucknell's center at the end of the second half and in OT when our big freshmen were both out of the game.

On a personal note, and anyone who watched the streaming Bucknell feed online will agree with me, I couldn't be happier that their d-bag announcer had to go home a loser. He couldn't have been more unprofessional.

Here's looking forward to a win against St. Pete's... in regulation. The boys could use a rest.

At least we didn't lose by 13

Although, maybe that would have been easier. Tonight's 63-58 overtime loss to GW was one of the ugliest, most sickening losses I remember at BU. As in it just made me sick to my stomach.

Look I know my prediction had BU coming out on top, but I really didn't think we would win this game. I had this as one of the two out-of-conference losses. So its own, this isn't a terrible loss.

But if you look at HOW it was lost, you just shake your head. The Colonials did just about everything they could to hand the game to us on a platter, and we wouldn't take it. They shoot 46% on field goals, so what do we do? We shoot 29% The shoot 55% on free throws, so what do we do? We shoot 46%. They turn the ball over like 25 times, so what do we do? Well, I mentioned the shooting percentages didn't I? Corey Lowe couldn't hit water if he fell off the BU Bridge tonight. We missed so many 3-foot shots that GW should have just stopped guarding us when we got into the paint. And Matt Wolff, I've defended the kid before... but yegods, every time we could NOT afford a mistake it seemed like he was throwing the ball away, or making a dumb foul, or taking an impossible shot.

[Deep breath]

OK, in the interest of sanity I will list a few positives.

• Jake O'Brien looked great and I like him a lot. He did NOT look like a freshman out there and he significantly outplayed the senior Rob Diggs while they were out there together. He was all hustle going after loose balls and rebounds. He was stepping up and trying to make plays with the ball when nobody else would.
  
• John Holland scored 22 and was the only consistent performer on offense. And he had a monster breakaway dunk in the first half.
• The Corey Lowe rebound and game-tying layup made for an exciting moment, even if it did just set up the crushing disappointment known as overtime.

I'm going to forget about this one ASAP and start looking forward to Bucknell. Maybe I'll even drive up there on Tuesday. Anything to move on.

I will say one thing: I believe that if Scott Brittain plays, BU wins this game. Jake the Snake played well, but once he fouled out we had NOTHING in the middle to step up against their redwoods. Maybe that's the best thing to think about to make myself feel better.

Just The Tip-Off

The Hot Dog does a good job of summarizing Non-Midnight Madness this year, but he cheated since he was actually there. On the other hand I wasted an hour and a half of my Saturday watching the complete video which is helpfully uploaded on the BU site. Little did I realize that many of the highlights are viewable separately, and without some of the grating radio commentary, by going here.

The atmosphere looked pretty good - crazy light systems and whatnot. They collapsed the bleachers on one side, I guess so they could make a crowd that would normally be half-full look, well, full. They should think about doing that against Stony Brook.

New uni's

Looks like the Terriers got new jerseys this year (away ones at least), and get this: they have NAMES on the back. Making the jerseys that the High Roller and I bought last year for 65 bucks charmingly obsolete. I guess they are throwbacks already.

Seems like the names on the back has its pluses and minuses. While it'll be easier to identify our freshmen right away, it may also open our players up to Popoko-style harassment/torture while on the road.

Clear winner: Carlos Strong. His name is badass, you can't argue with someone whose jersey says Strong on it.

Clear loser: Matt Wolff. For those opposing fans that weren't giving Matty a hard time because they forgot he was the coach's kid... sorry Matt.

The Better Belding

When it comes to the America East conference schedule, which came out yesterday, I think of it like Mr. Belding. Do you remember when he wanted to take the gang on their Senior Class Trip to Yosemite for a lovely, but slightly boring and predictable, nature outing? But then his brother the substitute teacher, Rod Belding, swooped in with the more exciting prospect of whitewater rafting, leaving Mr. Belding to sadly toss his Yosemite brochures in the trash.

Every year, the non-conference schedule swoops in, tempting us with fun exciting games like Notre Dame and UMass and GW. But where's that non-conference schedule gonna be when the end of the year comes and BU wants to try to make the Big Dance? That's right: taking off with some stewardess who's only in town for the weekend.

And that's when we'll realize who's been there with us the whole time - the predictable and slightly boring games with Maine, Binghamton and Stony Brook. The long, flowing golden locks of GW and the chiseled jaw of Marshall are not taking us whitewater rafting to the postseason... it's going to be the balding, paunchy Hartford's and Albany's.

To paraphrase, it may not be the most exciting schedule, but yesterday we got the better schedule.

Thu 1/8 - @ Albany
Sun 1/11 - vs. New Hampshire
Wed 1/14 - vs. Vermont
Sat 1/17 - @ Binghamton
Mon 1/19 - vs. Stony Brook
Thu 1/22 - vs. UMBC
Sun 1/25 - @ Maine
Sat 1/31 - @ Hartford
Mon 2/2 - @ UMBC
Thu 2/5 - vs. Albany
Sat 2/7 - @ New Hampshire
Wed 2/11 - @ Vermont
Sat 2/14 - vs. Binghamton
Wed 2/18 - @ Stony Brook
Sat 2/21 - vs. Bracketbuster TBA
Thu 2/26 - vs. Maine
Sun 3/1 - vs. Hartford

We found out which AE games are going to be held in The Greek too: Vermont on 1/14, Albany on 2/5, and Hartford on 3/1 (along with GW, Marshall, Holy Cross and the Bracketbuster). Vermont and Albany are no-brainers, as the dominant forces in the conference over the past few years. To me, Hartford is a mild upset - I thought they would give UMBC some respect for winning it all last year. But it'll be cool because the Hartford game is Senior Night - hopefully a starting lineup consisting of Matt Wolff, Marques Johnson and someone named Sam Tully can fill the Arena.

[Insert juvenile Peacock joke here]

So this year, the "Bracketbuster" was less about Brackets and more like a Bust for BU - playing 6-19 St. Peter's is not the prize that we would like to have for interrupting the stretch run of our conference season. Still, today's 67-64 win was good to show just how far we have come as a team.

BU shot much worse than the PeaCOCKS (37.8% versus 48.0%), yet still came away with the victory because they took care of the ball and shared with others (only 8 turnovers all game, and 18 assists). That wouldn't have happened during the normal non-conference season. They also showed grit by coming from behind to take the win. They were down by 3 with just over a minute remaining, but turned that into a 3-point victory thanks to a wide open layup by Matt Wolff (who has really proved his worth lately) with 13 seconds left and clutch free throws by Johnny Holland.

**Fun Fact**: This is the first victory in any Bracketbuster or Bracketbuster-affiliated game for an America East team! Go us!

Congrats are in order for Corey Lowe - he shot 14 3-pointers, but the 6 that went in were enough for him to break the BU single season record for made 3-pointers (the record was 79, he now has 83). For a guy who missed 5 whole games due to injuries and his little vacation earlier this year, and still has at least 3 games to go, that is damn impressive.

Huge game next Thursday against Hartford - a chance to move into a tie for second place... and it's at our place. Time to bring it, Terrier fans.

John Holland for President Rookie of the Year

Faced with a chance for their first 3-game winning streak of the year, BU brought the hammer down on Stony Brook. Correction, make that Johnny Holland brought the hammer down on Stony Brook.

Kid turned in one of BU's best overall performances of the year last Saturday: 15 points, 14 boards... and oh yeah, no turnovers. Holland's performance in the game was overshadowed only by the fact that Matt Wolff got into a fight.

John Holland was rewarded for his effort with his second straight AE Rookie of the Week award and third overall (Matt Wolff, we can only assume, was rewarded for his effort with a cookie).

I have been pushing Johnny's candidacy for Rookie of the Year over at the AE message board, where most folks seem to think it's a two-horse race between UNH's Alvin Abreu and Hartford's Morgan Sabia. But let's look at the stats for conference games (which is when Holland started taking minutes from Wolff):


Holland 12.3 ppg 7.3 rpg 12/18 a/to

Sabia 12.3 ppg 3.6 rpg 10/22 a/to

Abreu 12.2 ppg 4.2 rpg 21/24 a/to


If you ask me, it's a close contest but Holland wins it. Sabia is the conference's 3-point field goal percentage leader, but then why isn't that translating into more points - and for such a tall guy that's quite a low RPG. Abreu's high numbers come from playing almost all of his team's minutes, since they have nowhere else to turn.

Just don't transfer, Johnny.

Seawolves See Wolff

The scariest thing about Saturday's tilt with the mighty Seawolves of the Stony Brook, was that before the game BU and SBU sported identical 4-12 (1-3) records. Ugh, talk about depressing

FYI for those who don't know, according to the SBU website a seawolf is "a mythical sea creature and according to the legend of the Seawolf, anyone fortunate enough to view it was subject to good luck." However a quick search of Wikipedia found no listing for such a mythical creature, so maybe SBU would have been better off sticking with one of their previous nicknames, like Patriots (used from 1966-94) or Warriors (1960-66). Admittedly, the Stony Brook "Soundmen" (1957-60) was pretty lame.

Anyway, even though the High Roller stole some of my thunder on this, my recap of the game will consist only of the text message exchange between the HR and myself during the second half:

High Roller: i hope marques fouls out
Tall boy: we are terrible if matt wolff is the key to our comeback
High Roller: they didnt see it coming. not looking bad right now
Tall boy: remember that this is against stony brook
High Roller: right

BU's Role Players Step it Up

I was texting back and forth with Tall-boy concerning our come back late in Saturday's game against Stony Brook, and I was feeling pretty pumped that the Terriers stepped it up late. Tall-boy replied to me with "remember, this is Stony Brook."

Yes, it was Stony Brook, but a sharper-looking Stony Brook. Plus our two leading scorers failed to score a point. Corey was unavailable (not sure why) and Carlos went 0-6.

So I think it's fair to get excited when the rest of the team picks it up and powers through for a win. Tyler Morris found his rhythm today and netted 18 points. Matt Wolff finally found his rhythm too, scoring 13 and going 4-4 from behind the arc. His two three-pointers in a row were pretty much the foundation of our comeback from a 9 point deficit.

And Scott Brittain got a double-double, with 15 points and 10 boards (maybe he was inspired by Tall-boy's latest post).

So what can happen if we get all the pieces working together, and on a regular basis? Can we routinely score 75, 80 points a game? Can we get 30 boards a game and less than 10 turnovers? Can we keep our shooting percentage over 40%, and our free throw percent over 75%?

Can we blow out Vermont on Friday in front of 5000* people at the Greek?

Something like that could do great things for our team's confidence, as well as the fan base on campus.

*I know 5000 people is a stretch, but there's no harm in hoping.

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.