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!

Thundering Turd

When BU loses a close game or a game it should have won, your humble writers tend to go into hibernation and not write about it for like 4 days. Maybe we're just pretending it didn't happen. Whatever. It's not very professional of us, but I don't care. It's therapeutic.

Anyway, we're back and ready to beat up on another lowly Ivy. Just a couple leftover notes from the Marshall game:

• Corey is amazing. That is all. He scored 36, plus 20 against Harvard... and didn't event get the Player of the Week?? Some d-bag from Binghamton got it, who averaged a mere 20 ppg last week.
• Why does Marshall put their nickname "Thundering Herd" on the front of their jerseys? That just looks dumb, especially on the road. Who do they think they are, the Baltimore Orioles?
• BU has not trailed with 5 mins left in any game this year
• Marshall went to the free throw line 30 times in the second half alone - and made 25 of them. Big difference in the game.
  
• The Terriers are now #4 in the nation with 11 3-pointers made per game.

Man, I wish we coulda beaten a Conference USA team. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it would have been our first win over a BCS team since Michigan .