Win against St. Peter's, Lose against The Quest

It wasn't the blowout we were all hoping for, but last Saturday BU at least came away with a win against St. Peter's. Despite the final score, BU was clearly the better team all day long and was firmly in control. Two droughts, near the end of each half, allowed the score to get a little closer than it should have. But even a 5-point margin was a vacation compared to the full-on, Dennis-Wolff-vein-popping Cardiac specials provided by the first two overtime games.

BU has a winning record for the first time since the very beginning of last season when we were 1-0.

Johnny Holland went off for a "quiet" 26 (well, it seemed quiet to me, except for his thunderous alley-oop slam from Mr. Corey Lowe) in only 24 minutes. Someone remind me why he only got 24 minutes. This effort, combined with the one against Bucknell where he took over in OT, was enough for him to snatch the Co-Player of the Week award, his first of what I assume will be several this year. Corey had another good game, but again missed some key FTs down the stretch. Jake O'Brien had tough shooting night, which I guess we have to expect once in a while - but boy does he love to shoot when he gets the ball, whever he gets it. But Wolff doesn't mind, as he said after the game, "If he’s looking at the basket and his feet are set, I’ll be mad if he doesn’t shoot."

Finally, Scott Brittain returned to the active roster. He wasn't the unquestioned difference-maker right away - with 2 points in 11 mins - but that is our fault for expecting too much. It's obvious Wolff is easing him back into the rotation, totally understandable because you can't be too cautious with head injuries. Take your time Scott, and we know you're gonna come up huge for us down the road.

As for The Quest for 901, that went sadly unfulfilled. A paltry 600 settled into the Roof for its opener, well short of the half-enrollment of St. Peter's I was hoping for. We'll have to settle for one-third of their total enrollment. Maybe the Dec. 10 matchup against Yale in Case Gym will bring more luck, although I suspect they have an enrollment a bit larger than St. Peter's.

The Quest for 901: The St. Peter's Preview

St. Peter's is almost certainly the worst team we will play this year. They only won 6 games last year, and only 5 the year before that. We were forced the play them on the road in last year's Bracketbuster, squeezing out a bit-too-close-for-comfort 3-point victory. And so we're forced to play them again this year at our house. Hopefully that will be the end of this boring series.

While BU has played two opponents of decent quality to a 1-1 split so far, St. Pete has played two poor teams, Wagner and Lehigh, and lost to both of them by double-digits.

The peacocks are led by Wes Jenkins, who led the team in scoring last year and seems to be well on his way again this year: he's the only 'Cock in double figs so far, with 22.5 ppg through 2 games.

On the BU side, we should get a YOOGE boost from the return of Scott Brittain, who will play but not start. I'm very excited about Scotty coming back - I thought we would have won both our games so far in regulation with his help. I'm expecting big things and much improvement from him, thanks to some tough love from Wolff:

“I’ve been on him relentlessly for a kid that I really, really like,” Wolff said Nov. 7. “I’ve said to him at the end of the year, you’ll either be on one of the all-league teams or you will hate me.”

Moving on, this will be the second home opener for BU this year -- this time they're opening up the Roof. Historically, attendance for games at the Roof has languished in the triple-digits, a stark contrast from games at the Greek. This will be compounded by tomorrow's no-name opponent. However, it's still early in the season, so people are supposedly still excited about the team. And students haven't left for Thanksgiving yet, for the most part. Here's a fun game: the total enrollment at St. Peter's is 1,802. The capacity of Case Gymnasium is 1,800. Assuming the 12 student athletes on the St. Pete's basketball team were sitting on the bench, they don't even have enough students to fill our tiny high school-style gym.

But here's the question: Can BU pack at least HALF of St. Peter's enrollment into Case for tomorrow's game? That's 901 Terriers fans and sympathizers. Why or why not?

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.

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.

Wolff sez: More games at the Greek (including BracketBuster!)

I had a chat with D-Wolff recently, just like I did last year, for a quick summer update on the happenings surrounding the Terriers. He was cool enough to call me while driving between two different gyms in Vegas during the big recruiting week there a little while ago.

Scouting in Vegas? Sounds like fun right? But coaches like Wolff and his assistants aren't there to drop a couple C-notes on the blackjack tables at Caesar's or spend a couple hours watching Gallagher find new ways to smash watermelons. No, it's a real grind going from gym to gym to look at hundreds of kids and having to choose between eating a meal and going to take a leak. For a really good illustration of what it's like read about it here (scroll down to Tuesday, July 29, 2008) or here.

Anyway, so it was incredibly nice to Coach to set aside a few minutes for me. Like a jackass, I didn't actually record the conversation because I have no idea how to record both ends of a telephone call with a regular tape recorder. I took notes, but they aren't perfect. So for that reason, info gleamed from the interview will spill out in smaller bits.

Like this, to start: Coach says the team will inconvenience the almighty hockey team a bit more this year by playing SEVEN games in Agganis Arena a.k.a. The Greek. The most we've had before was either 3 or 4, I can't remember.

The idea behind this is to create more of a big-time atmosphere around the team, and to me it's true: the games seem more of a big deal when they are played in a real college arena, and not a high school gymnasium. The skeptics among us will point out that if the tiny Roof looks empty on game nights then the Greek is going to look like the loneliest place on earth. Others will point to the Terriers' dismal win-loss record at Agganis. Well I say eff that... I want my team to play at the nicest court we have.

There will be 3 non-conference games there: GW, Marshall and Holy Cross. Good choices all, since they're the 3 highest profile home opponents we've got.

The Greek will also be hosting a BracketBuster matchup - and it's the first time a home game has been awarded to an America East team. I am REALLY hoping for a TV game this year. It'll be nice to be relevant after getting stuck with meaningless games against Manhattan and St. Peter's the last 2 years.

That leaves 3 America East games to be hosted at Agganis. Anybody got guesses on which ones they will be?

The 08-09 schedule is out... and I'm already excited about making Notre Dame jokes

Here's the list of teams we hope to belittle in this space after the Terriers beat them during this upcoming season:

11/14 - vs. George Washington
11/18 - @ Bucknell
11/22 - vs. St. Peter's
11/25 - @ Northeastern
11/29 - @ Mount St. Mary's
12/3 - @ Harvard
12/6 - vs. Marshall
12/10 - vs. Yale
12/13 - @ Notre Dame
12/21 - vs. Delaware
12/29 - @ Cornell
1/2 - vs. Holy Cross

It's an interesting list. Much weaker than last year's; we effectively swapped out St. Bonnie, St. Joe's and UMass in exchange for Mount St. Mary, Bucknell and Cornell. We replaced the A-10 with the NEC, Patriot and Ivy - significant downgrade in talent.

But you know what? It's fine with me. Last year we only won 3 out-of-conference games, and if this schedule helps us win more than that, I'm all for it. I was really excited about last season, and that losing streak at the beginning of the year was a real turd in the punchbowl. And there is probably only one game on that whole list that is a near-certain loss (ND). The rest are eminently winnable.

[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.

"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.