What Can We Count On

IT'S BACK!!!

Yes, BU basketball comes back tonight. But there is an air of unfamiliarity about the team this year. For the first time in 5 years, Tyler Morris won't be hustling down the court - he was as close to being the "rock" of BU basketball as you can get. You could always count on Tyler being there and giving it all, from his Rookie of the Year to his outstanding performance in the CBI to finish his career.

No, we won't have Tyler to serve as our rock this year. We won't have the tumultous presence of Corey Lowe - the will he or won't he transfer rumors, the conflicts with coaches, the nagging injuries. Sure you couldn't "count" on Corey, but you felt better knowing the erstwhile Big East point guard was there. We can't count on the gritty determination and potential of a Carlos Strong coming off the bench, the steadiness of a Scott Brittain in the middle, the character of a Tunde Agboola, the confusion that was Brendan Sullivan, the adorableness of a Mike Schulze.

Right now, we can only count on one man, one force: John Holland.

This team will go as far as JH23 can take them. He's undoubtedly the best player in the America East. Coach Chambers declined to make him a team captain (opting instead for 2 guys who have never suited up!) because he didn't want to give John any additional pressure on top of the load he is going to have to carry. Is he up for the challenge?

We don't really know what he'll have in terms of help yet. Jake is a good player but one peg lower. Pelage is another peg below that. But that's it! Will Griffin, Partin and most importantly Pat Hazel be able to help? I have no idea. Will some of freshmen step up? We now have a DJ and a Malik -- great basketball names -- so that bodes well. Early reviews on Travis Robinson and Dom Morris are promising.

Tonight we see if we can turn some of that promise into performance. Northeastern is a team in a remarkably similar situation. Like BU, they have only 3 upperclassmen who were there last year, and a ton of underclassmen. Two things BU has in their favor:

1) They didn't lose their best player. NU did (Matt Janning).
2) They don't go to Northeastern (always a plus)

BU has won the last 2 crosstown matchups in a row. I think this will be a close game, like last year's overtime win at Case, but extremely sloppy due to two inexperienced teams.

Guys, we NEED this win. I hate Northeastern. Do us fans a solid and start this season off with a win.

WILL BU WIN TONIGHT?
Magic 8-Ball sez:

On to the Little Dance

With a resounding 76-56 thumping of Maine, the Terriers ended the 2009-10 season on a high note. That makes 5 out of 6 wins in February, the only loss coming in the final seconds against Vermont. What made this win more notable than the others is that it was the first of the year over a top-3 opponent. That is a nice hump to get over, and such a convincing win gives hope going into the tournament.

We finish at 17-12 and 11-5 in the America East Conference, which is good for 4th place. How does that compare with the season that got Dennis Wolff fired last year? Well, last year we were 17-12 and 11-5 in the conference, which was good for 3rd place. Scott Brittain was out this year, but Tyler Morris and Carlos Strong missed most of last year, and this year the guys are a year more experienced.

So on the surface, it doesn't look like the coaching change made any tangible year over year difference. However, DWolff wasn't fired for going 17-12 or 11-5. He was fired for going 0-1.

Will Coach Pat Chambers make his mark on this portion of the record? If that's how we judged Wolff, it's only fair we judge Chambers by the same standards. I think it's fair to say that Chambers will be feeling some heavy expections from Mike Lynch et al as he heads to his first America East tournament.

So who do we play? Well right now, it's uncertain. We are supposed to play Binghamton, who finished 5th place despite some crazy obstacles. But one more obstacle may be put Bing's way, namely a voluntary or involuntary absence from this year's tournament in Hartford. NY Times reporter Pete Thamel tweeted that "The America East and Binghamton are deciding if Bearcats should play in conference tournament."

This would be bullshit for us, especially since we dominated Binghamton by 40 last week, and it would leave us with the host team Hartford. Meanwhile, Vermont would move from getting a tough UNH team to getting the hapless UMBC Retrievers. This may all be resolved by the time you read this post, so no use getting worked up about it now. I am sure that Chambers & Co. are doing everything they can to prepare the Terriers for whichever team shows up at 2:30 on Saturday.

More on the tournament to come this week.

A Boost for Our Bench Scoring: The Maine Preview

I am currently watching Georgetown-Notre Dame on CBS, and they flashed a stat onscreen that caught my eye. It said that Georgetown is ranked #345 out of 347 D-I schools in bench scoring with 17 points per game, and Notre Dame is last in the nation at #347 out of 347 with 13.6 bench points per game.

I immediately called bullshit. As a Terrier fan, I know that absolutely NOBODY has worse bench production than us.

Basketball State doesn't show bench scoring, so I had to add this up myself. All told, even including 5 or 6 games at the beginning when John Holland was coming off the bench, BU non-starters only scored 290 points in 28 games - an average of 10.3 points per game. So SUCK IT CBS, I had no idea where you got that stat from. I'd love to know what they were talking about.

Things could change today, as it's Senior Day and all our senior bench guys will start, meaning we will have Jake O'Brien and John Holland coming off the bench. Here's how I see our starting lineup:

G Mike Schulze
G Tunde Agboola
F Sherrod Smith
F Valdas Sirutis
F Brendan Sullivan

Anything else would be a travesty. Lowe, Strong and Morris don't need to start this game. All 5 of those bench guys should get at least 4 minutes, since this game is essentially meaningless. It would be really awesome if Scott Brittain could suit up for this one too, but I don't see it happening.

So let's have these guys go out and win this Senior Day for Scott.

John Holland should be AE Player of the Year

While famously lampooned in Wayne's World, our trip to Delaware wasn't nearly as lame as it might sound.

(And with that, I just set the single-season record for Wayne's World references - it's not even in my Top 20 movies either!)

We got to see the Terriers put on a hell of a win in their Bracketbuster game, bringing our career BB record to 3-0. We got to beat a team that had beaten us two years in a row. We got a win against the annoying Colonial conference. We defeated a team that had bolted the America East less than a decade ago.

All these things were good, but none matched the sensational John Holland.

After JH23 scored 20 in the first half, we were wondering if he'd make it to 40. He started out on a tear in the second half, so from then on we were just rooting for him to get the ball. He was making mid-range jumpers, put-backs, closely guarded threes... you name it. With 39 points, he drove to the hoop and got fouled, then this happened:



We thought this was a big deal at the time since we were rooting for it all game. His final basket came with a few seconds left in the game as the shot clock was winding down. The defender was challenging John to beat him for a meaningless bucket; John took the bait and burned him with a sweet drive to the bucket.

43 points!!! Are you kidding me?! Easily the greatest single-game effort I've seen by a BU player. After the game, the PA announcer said it was the highest point total in the history of Delaware's Bob Carpenter Center.

Other things:

• BU had a great road crowd again, thanks to the proximity to the Chambers clan's home base in Philly.
• Tyler Morris must have been sick - he only went in the game for 3-4 mins at a time, looked paler than Conan O'Brien and walked over to the giant garbage can to spit several times. If he had puked on the court, this would have topped the 43 point game. You know the flipcam was ready.
• After the game, we took a driving tour of Wilmington, DE, because... why the hell not? Frankly it wasn't that exciting besides seeing a couple cool old buildings. But the tour ended with a brewpub called Iron Mill Brewery which was mighty fine - I recommend their homemade Raspberry Wheat.

My Terrier Pet Peeve: The Delaware Preview

A couple things. First, that Binghamton game was the greatest. It seemed like Every Single Thing went right for the Terriers. Shots were falling, and we played amazing defense. Tyler, John, Jake and Carlos all shined. It's true that Binghamton was finishing a 4 game road trip, but it's still a team that almost beat us a month earlier. A 42 point win is a 42 in though. In the seniors' last game ever at Agganis, they finally proved once and for all that they could score there. Just a joy to watch.

Now, with only one more conference game left, we're locked into the #3 or #4 seed for the tournament. The #3 is wayyyyy better because we wouldn't have to play Stony Brook in the semifinals. So we have to root for Maine to lose one of their next 2 games, and then beat them in our last game. BOOOOOOO to Maine.

Now, I've got to get something off my chest. I love the Terriers, and they play a fun brand of basketball this year. But one thing really sticks in my craw: when the other team makes a bucket, it takes forever to get the ball inbounds. I'm not talking about if the other team is guarding us, it's just that it seems like the guy who's supposed to inbound it seems to forget he's has to inbound and is already running down the court. Then the point guard has to call someone back to inbound it.

I know, it doesn't really matter, but I hate it! It interrupts the flow of the game for me. Look for it next time you watch the Terriers. So note to the inbounders: Don't run down the court and forget to inbound!!

About today: it's BRACKETBUSTER SATURDAY! Or fake bracketbuster Saturday. Instead of a crappy MAAC team we got a crappy CAA team. But it's cool because Delaware is within driving distance for me. So I'll be among a small group of visiting Terrier fans today.

This game, in reality, doesn't really matter at all. The big one is next week. But we can at least use it to keep our momentum going. We're playing well now, we just need to continue that into the tournament.

Last Road Game: The Albany Preview

BU athletics marketing came up with the perfect giveaway for Thursday's game against UNH - camouflage shirts. They were a huge hit... when I watched on TV I could hardly see any fans in the stands.

Ba-dum-ching.

BU gave the fans who were there reason to cheer. After a lackluster first half, we dominated the Wildcats in the second. Our shots were falling and theirs weren't, simple as that. Tyler had his first great game back from his injury, John and Jake both shined and Corey had 7 assists to 1 turnover.

Some good trends continued in this game:

• UNH still hasn't beaten us in Boston since 1994
• BU has won 5 out of its last 6 games in The Greek

Tonight we will play in Albany. Despite their last place standing, they will put our crowd to shame, which is kind of depressing. Still, I think we kick some more ass tonight and put some more pressure on the teams ahead of us not to screw up.

...And now back to 5th place

The only good thing to come out of Saturday's Stony Brook game was that we unexpectedly got two of our injured Terriers back in uniform, Tyler Morris and Brendan Sullivan. It didn't help us on the court, where we looked pretty awful.

The Fighting Popoko's got out to a 13-0 start and never looked back. I don't think we got closer than 6 or 7 for the rest of the game. So frustrating to watch. Each of their guys took turns making shots they shouldn't be making.

On our side, John Holland had one of his worst games he's ever had, and Corey wasn't pretty either. Our three turnovers to start the game (leaving us without a shot 3 minutes into the game) really set the tone.

So my 6-2 prediction for the second half... not looking too pretty right now. We'd have to win our final 6 to make that happen. We're behind freakin Binghamton, and tied in the loss column with Hartford. Awful.

The only silver lining is that 5 of our last 6 are at home. I think we can win 5 of those 6 (counting Vermont at home as the loss), but of course nothing is guaranteed with this league and this team. One thing's for sure though, you can count us out of the race for the top seed -- I don't see Stony Brook losing 3 more games this year. That team is legit. I think #3 is probably our ceiling, though #4 more likely.

More depressing news is likely coming this afternoon when the Bracketbusters matchups are announced. Once again, we're not good enough to get a high-profile TV game (or even a medium-profile ESPN360 game!). There is little doubt that with our mediocre fortunes this year we'll be saddled with another terrible MAAC team. The only suspense left is which it will be.

I think we can rule out:
Iona (played them this year)
Marist (played them this year)
St. Peter's (previous Bracketbuster)
Manhattan (previous Bracketbuster)
Siena (too good and will get a TV game)
Fairfield (not a hosting team)
Niagara (not a hosting team)
Rider (not a hosting team)

This leaves the following possible schools:
Loyola
Canisius

Check back later to see which one of these fun opponents awaits.

Halfway Home: The Maine Preview

How exciting is this! We're halfway through our conference schedule, and tonight we're playing for first place. Something odd though - the game isn't against Vermont, and it isn't against Albany or Binghamton. It's against Maine. That's right... terrible, basement-dwelling, joke of a team Maine. I know, I can't believe it either.

But right now, let's focus on the halfway through part. How did the first half go?

Well, we're playing for first place, so not too badly. We cleaned up against the crap teams, and we crapped the bed against the good ones. But in the words of the immortal Brian Johnson, 6-2 ain't a bad place to be.

The Story of the First Half: Coping With Injuries

Already without Scott Brittain and BJ Bailey, we lost Tyler Morris after the first AE game. At that point, many BU fans labeled the season a lost cause and were ready to write the season off. I publicly wondered who would run the point for BU.

Since then, the Terriers starters have pulled together and stepped up their game. And I've got two of them in mind in particular, and that's Corey Lowe and Carlos Strong. 'Los has really stepped up rebounding and on the defensive side of the ball, while still shooting 47% from 3 point range. And Corey has been all-around ridiculous; upping his points and assist numbers, while becoming a real leader on the floor.

The bench has been a problem all year, mainly because of those injury problems. But we're finally beginning to see a glimmer of hope (aka production) there, and from the unlikeliest of sources: Sherrod Smith (7 rebounds against UMBC!!!), Brendan Sullivan (5 rebounds against Binghamton!!), Tunde Agboola (shooting 67% for the year!!!) and yes even Mikey Schulze (a big '2' in the scoring column against UMBC).

What Can We Expect the Rest of the Year?

That all depends on how long our 4 main guys can keep up this pace. They are going to get TIRED. However, 5 of our final 9 are at home, so that helps.

It depends on whether the bench can continue to improve.

It depends on how good Tyler is, and to a lesser extent Brendan Sullivan, coming back from injury.

And it depends on how bad these 9 seniors want to finish out their careers on a good note.

My Prediction: Another 6-2, for a grand total of 14-4 and 2nd place.

I think the tired legs will make an impact at some point. But the experience and talent of the team will get it most of the way there.

It starts tonight in Maine. This is a team that is somehow good. They have a player, Gerald McLemore, who is maybe the next Corey Lowe in this league. And they've got some beefy guys who can patrol the paint. I'm hoping we can hold this one down, and be able to stand on top of the AE mountain for a few days.

FML: The UNH Preview

Tyler Morris broke his hand Tuesday in practice, Scott Brittain is basically out for the entire year, and BJ Bailey just transferred out.

Who is going to play for us!??!

Now, Corey Lowe is our ONLY ballhandler! What happens when Corey is in foul trouble or needs a breather? Nevermind that Corey is most effective off the ball - nobody else can bring it up. Is Mike Schultz going to get significant minutes? Will Carlos and John Holland bring up the ball? Tunde???

I'm not even sure we'll be able to finish .500 now. UNH tonight on the road will be a good barometer. They are not a bad team, but not top tier. Our core of Holland, Lowe and O'Brien is still better than any other in the league, but ZERO bench is ridiculous.

Poor Tyler Morris. This is the 4th major injury of his BU career. I'm sure he feels like shit right now, just wanting to play, and I feel bad for him. Here's hoping he can come back in a month (or less!) and contribute mightily to the stretch run and the tournament. And hoping we can stay afloat in the meantime.

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!

Tough Loss to Kansas State, 80-70

What's the difference between an Big 12 team and an America East team? Not much except for size, strength, speed, and skill. The Terriers were just as into the game as the Wildcats, possible even more, but gumption will only get you so far.

And there's only so much one team can do when they commit 34 fouls in a game. I like the way Chambers coaches, but there's no way that he can allow Corey Lowe to reach four fouls in the first half.

Corey Lowe and Tyler Morris were both limping at the end of the game, by the way. Make of that what you will.

Today we take on the Hoosiers of Indiana, and as John Holland Sr. says, it's "winnable". Less fouls, less turnovers, more threes, and tighter defense should pave the way to victory.

Who is this fast-paced basketball team, and what have you done with BU?

In my Iona preview I listed a few things people might think of when they hear "Iona." Unfortunately, BU fans who traveled to the game on Friday have emailed me to add another one: "raging alcoholic dickheads."



Read the Hot Dog's full account here, if you don't mind feeling uncomforable just sitting in your chair. Now, I'm not going to say we were all choir boys and angels back in my day, or always showed up ready to pass a breathalyzer, but we never personally targeted other fans or got in anybody's face. Especially for 40 straight minutes. These losers had zero interest in the game, just in making life miserable for the die-hard fans who made a 2-hour trip to cheer on their team. Idiots.

As for the game: sigh. In the excited build-up to every basketball season, especially this year with Coach Chambers getting everybody whipped into a frenzy, you forget how quickly you can be brought back down to earth by one uninspired opening performance.

This year it was BU losing by 9 at Iona, 82-73. One thing was crystal clear from this game: this is no longer Dennis Wolff's team. If the teams were Elton John songs, this is "Crocodile Rock" to last year's "Candle in the Wind." No more walking the ball up the floor to a half-court set offense. No more low-scoring games. And really, not much defense to be seen.

The Terriers ran up and down the floor non-stop. While this makes for an exciting, back-and-forth basketball game, I've got to criticize the strategy a bit. We had only 6 regular rotation players available... plus Vlad Sirutis and Sherrod Smith. Going up against a rotation of 11, this puts us at a disadvantage. Not only would we get tired more quickly, but the fouls mount up - which is exactly what happened. We had 6 guys finish with 4 or more fouls. Add it up and you've got a defense that resembles... the BU hockey team (sorry guys).

No strategy is going to work unless the shots fall, which they didn't. We shot under 40% for the game, and worse, made only 4 of 9 free throws in the second half. Turning the ball over 22 times doesn't help.

Bright spots were there. Tyler Morris looked like the 2006 version of himself. Carlos Strong had the first double-double of his career. The guards (Carlos, C-Lowe and Holland) rebounded the ball well, which will be important for our perimeter-oriented team.

The team's injuries hurt the depth, but even so we could have won the game. This much was glaring: the team desperately misses Scott Brittain's presence inside.

Expectations and Predictions

Expectations are a funny thing. As fans we cheer for our team and talk trash about how we're better than other teams. But then sometimes, we are hesitant to predict big things from our team. Why? Because we don't want to "raise expectations."

And why don't we want to raise expectations? I guess because of some fans have this idea about how much enjoyment you can get out of it. If you expect to come in 1st, and you come in 3rd, you're disappointed. If you expect to come in 1st, and you come in 1st, you're merely satisfied. And if you expect to come in 3rd, and you come in 1st, you're ecstatic beyond your wildest dreams. These fans think you get more enjoyment out of coming in 1st if you're not expecting it, and they want to mitigate their disappointment in case they come in 3rd ("Well, this is how we expected to do..."). The same effect comes into play to a sickening degree at political debates.

In the case of players and coaches, they try to set expectations low for the same reasons, except it's job security instead of enjoyment.

Well, the players can do what they want, and the coaches can do what they want. But I'm not tempering my expectations. I expect us to win a game in Puerto Rico. I expect us to win 20 games. I expect us to have two players on the All-AE First Team. I expect us to win the America East this year and go to the NCAA Tournament. And I'm going to enjoy it all just as much as if I only expected us to finish in 8th place (Binghamton is the default 9th place).

These high expectations should be the same every year, for every team. They're the reason Dennis Wolff was fired. And I don't think Pat Chambers should get any leeway from them just because he's new! We have a group of great veterans who have proven themselves capable. This is their last shot - why wouldn't they expect to make it to the NCAA's themselves!

Coach Chambers, Tyler Morris and Carlos Strong have all recently talked about not looking ahead of the next practice or game in front of them, and not worrying about where they are at the end of the year as long as they are the best team they can be. That's a fine attitude to have in order to keep concentration on the day-to-day efforts at improving. But they're crazy if they don't have any goals or expectations for the entire season.

There is pressure involved in setting high expectations. But when you expect great things, sometimes you get great results.

* * *

Now, predictions are different that expectations, but for fans they can fall into the same trap as the expectations... forecasting lower results to minigate disappointment and be "pleasantly surprised" by success. Well, not me. I predict (and expect) that this group of seniors and this new coach will bring us a championship.

Others who don't care about our program one way or the other are unencumbered by the expectations game. So what do they think?

In short, they all have pretty high expectations for us. I haven't seen a publication yet (published post-Tiki) that doesn't have us winning the America East. So what about beyond that, in the NCAA tourney?

CBS Sports: #16 vs. Kentucky
ESPN Bracketology: Play-In Game vs. Jackson State (!)
Blogging the Bracket: #14 vs. West Virginia
FoxSports: #16 vs. West Virginia

That's a lot to live up to.

Media Day: Everybody Loves the Terriers!

For the third year in a row, the America East coaches have UNANIMOUSLY picked BU to finish #1 overall in the Preseason:

1. Boston U
2. Vermont
3. Albany
4. Stony Brook
5. New Hampshire
6t. Hartford
6t. UMBC
8. Maine
9. Binghamton

And we were well represented on the Preseason All-Conference Team:

Tim Ambrose, Jr., Albany
Marqus Blakely, Sr., Vermont
Muhammad El-Amin, Sr., Stony Brook
John Holland, Jr., Boston U.
Corey Lowe, Sr., Boston U.

Pat Chambers was "sick" (no really, Coach, we believe you...) and missed his first America East Media Day, so right-hand man Orlando Vandross ably stepped in to give soundbites of things we mostly knew already. Among them:

Chambers will bring a more exciting, Villanova style of play to BU

Carlos Strong and Tyler Morris are healthy and ready to go

BJ Bailey should emerge as a regular part of the rotation by conference play

It was mighty nice of the coaches to vote us #1, but we don't care

"There is a genuine excitement about our basketball program. We need to harness it."

Just the Tip-Off

PAT CHAMBERS.

I could end the post there and I would have said enough. But it deserves a few more words. We have heard Pat Chambers talk a lot about getting kids fired up for basketball. This is the first time we saw it in action. Like a mad man, Chambers sprinted out onto the court, screaming at the fans to stand up, even jumping up on the scorers table. And the fans responded by standing up, and screaming back louder. Chambers lost his voice in about 2 seconds. He went on for about 5 minutes talking about supporting the team, getting fired up, the team has a new attitude.

It was a far cry from a Dennis Wolff tip-off performance, or even the BU women's coach. It might even succeed in getting people to go to games, who knows.

Random observations from the rest of the night:

-- Is it just me, or were the guy's intro songs slightly outdated? I think the time for "Hey Shorty, It's Your Berfday" and "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" has passed. (And John Holland, lose the Yanks cap dude. You're trying to connect with the student body!)

-- Speaking of outdated songs, someone with access please slip some newer material under Chris Parks' office door. I love the BU Band -- they are probably the most devoted BU sports fans there are -- but the old songs they have been playing since I was a freshman (a decade ago!!) just remind me of the OLD BU basketball. Pat Chambers is trying to re-invent this program with new life, but that old intro song the band plays (whatever it's called) keeps me back in the DWolff era. And were any students even born before "Push It" came out?

-- The Dance Team was good as usual, but I'm feeling the MJ fatigue. But the collab with the hoops team was "Bad" (meaning good). John Holland was not good, Tyler Morris was surprisingly good, and Jeff Pelage looked like he was having the most fun out there.

-- My ranking of the different dance performances of the night:

1. Fusion
2. BU Dance Team
3. BU Cheer Team
4. XCeption
5. Status Quo - not impressed by them. Bring back Lil' Phunk or Phunk Phenomenon!
...
99. BU Men's Basketball team - points for effort. At least it was better than this:



-- In the first round of the 3-point shooting contest, both girls beat Tyler Morris and Corey Lowe. In fact, both guys appeared to be drunk. But then Tyler redeemed the men by getting on fire in the second round, proving once and for all the men are the dominant gender.

-- The best dunks from the dunk contest were pretty impressive. Carlos Strong was the clear winner, so I'm glad he took the title for the second staight year. My favorite comment, courtesy of Dean Elmore: "Show 'em what it means to be from Maine, Carlos!"

Line up the troops!

At Fake BU, the lineup means standing in front of a giant ruler and a witness behind glass. At the Real BU, however, it means the five guys who are going to lead Coach Chambers into his inaugural season on the court.

Projecting the Terriers' starting lineup and depth chart will not be as easy this year as it seems. Even if Chambers didn't bring in any of his own guys this year, he's bringing his own system and philosophies and we may not know how the players fit into his schemes.

That said, we've seen what all but one of these guys can do so we have a pretty good starting point. What can we expect to begin the season? My guess:

1: Corey Lowe
2: Carlos Strong
3: John Holland
4: Jake O'Brien
5: Scott Brittain

I think this is the year that 'Los sheds the "6th Man" label and gets a chance to start every game. The other option is throwing Tyler in at the point and moving Corey off the ball, but Tyler was a little less effective last year after coming back from injury. Chambers may feel that Corey would be more effective off the ball. But due to Tyler's injury problems of the last few years, he may benefit from not being ridden for 35 mins per game this year. I think that Tyler would excel in a bench/quick energy, shooting and defense role, but we know he can hold down a starting job too.

There aren't really any other debates about the starting lineup, but there is certainly some decent depth right behind them. While noting that practice hasn't even started yet, here's how I could see it shaking out:

1: Lowe/Bailey
2: Strong/Morris
3: Holland/
4: O'Brien/Sirutis
5: Brittain/Pelage

I think it'll be a 9-man rotation, with Vlad Sirutis getting only a few per game. Mike Schultz, Tunde, Sully and, unfortunately, TheRod Smith will play the role of pine-jockey until the team is completely ravaged by injuries.

Who's steering this thing??

Famous captains:

Apparently, you can add 4 more to that list. Coach Chambers announced that Corey Lowe, Tyler Morris, Scott Brittain and Carlos Strong are BU's captains this year. This group contains all of the seniors who have played significant minutes every year since they were freshmen.

Congrats to all of them, as they have all been great contributors over their three years so far and they all deserve to be recognized.

However, and maybe I'm behind the times on this, but I have always been of the mind that there should be 1 captain per team. It's very cool for all the players if every significant player to go through the system becomes a captain at some point in their careers, but if every player is a captain does it really mean anything?

And if they really do have actual responsibilities, is it a good idea to have 4 guys trying to make decision or run drills? You know what they say about too many cooks in the kitchen.

Take Derek Jeter or Jason Varitek, for example. They are not the best players on their teams, but they lead by example and they lead by their words. It's not Varitek, Wakefield, Lowell, Ortiz just because they are the "seniors" of the Red Sox. President Obama is the "Captain" of America... we didn't choose the 4 guys who had been in the Senate the longest.

Regardless, I'm sure the guys will find some way to divide the captaining responsibilities. As long as it doesn't devolve into an ugly power struggle along the lines of Jim Halpert/Michael Scott.

"No, the season didn't die... it just went to go live with a nice farm family"

Thanks to a scoop from the Hot Dog, we now know that:

A) I was wrong about Corey - he's BENCHED for the Albany game
B) Tyler Morris is OUT FOR THE YEAR with a torn ACL.
C) Carlos Strong is OUT FOR THE YEAR with a torn meniscus.

Fuck.

First, I feel for the guys who got hurt, especially Tyler. Ever since he got to BU, the kid can't stay healthy long enough to tie his shoelaces. He was the heart and soul of the team during his Rookie of the Year season, and it killed him last year when he wasn't able to contribute -- this is going to be even worse on him.

This team was going to have a hard enough road getting back to its old form... now it has to try it without two of our best players. For a season that started with so much promise and potential... this is a real shame.

Neither Carlos nor Tyler had been playing up to his potential yet this year - but they are important players that contribute a lot to this team. Suddenly, our backcourt -- which was the supposed strength of the Terriers -- is now missing two of its best shooters.

Marques Johnson will now play the point position for about 38 minutes per game. Before this happened, I was going to suggest getting Marques more minutes on the floor as a way to help the offense flow a little better - now we'll be getting it whether we like it or not.

But suppose Marques or Corey needs a break, or gets into foul trouble, or God-forbid gets injured... who comes into the game? Of the remaining guards on the roster, Sherrod Smith leads in minutes played with... 2. Total. For the season. And even he's more of a wing player. Could this be the emergence of the mythical, rarely-seen but never-verified Sam Tully, or --dare I say it-- Tunde??

Oh man, we're in trouble...

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.