#Winning on Saturday (Duh)

The details of yesterday are a bit hazy after the tailgate. To paraphrase Rick James, four loko is a hell of a drug.

We missed the Albany-Stony Brook game, but the Binghamton-Vermont and Maine-Hartford were memorable and pretty good games. We spent the non-BU games vacillating between our neutral seats in the corner rooting for upsets, the beer garden for pretty reasonable $5 beers, standing in the bathroom lines, looking for outlets to charge cell phones, and inexplicably buying America East Tournament tshirts.

Our search for matches led us to ask pretty much everyone in the AE FanFest tent for matches. Nobody smokes anymore! But we were saved by a TV technician (I think) who went and got them from his truck, leading me to drunkenly tweet, "HOT DOGS FOR EVERYONE!" For those who care, we also ended up going on a late night Mohegan Sun run, wandering around the casino in our BU jerseys looking for the craps tables. (We broke even.)

The punctuation mark on the day was the Hartford fans storming the court after their upset of... Maine. Freaking Maine?! I spoke with Kyle from Midmajoritywho was wondering afterwardhow the UHa students would top this if they got a win in the semifinals.

Which brings us to tonight's game, of course, when BU will try to prevent another court-storming and who knows, maybe burning the arena to the ground. BU took care of bidness against UNH in one of my favorite types of games: it was exciting throughout but I was never really worried about losing. BU held a single-digit lead the whole time. I haven't seen box scores but apparently JH23 led the team in scoring, which was great considering we were so worried about his health. Matt Griffin, Darryl and DJ all hit some bigtime shots in the second half.

I was really impressed with the BU fan showing - loud and fairly numerous. Props to the kids with the "Partin the Interruption" and "DJ's got me falling in love again" signs.

I talked to John Holland's pops during halftime, who said he thought his soon looked good and pretty healthy (and I respect his expert opinion). Couldn't believe how calm he is though! I feel like I'm way more worried about hoping his son makes an NCAA tourney than he is! Maybe he knows something I don't...

Tonight we take on the homestanding host Hartford Hawks. In last year's quarterfinals, we won by 41 points. They did beat us this year in this building earlier this year. But that was before we were the team we are now. I watched that game at Cornwalls in Kenmore Sq with WildBoyz, and it was the one where we had a huge lead that we let evaporate over the last 5 minutes. Something tells me the Terriers won't let that happen again.

First order of business: resume rainy tailgating.
Second order of business: go inside to root against Vermont.
Third order of business: watch BU kick some ass.

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No Match (For BU or our Tailgate)

We're in the parking lot of Chase Arena in Hartford. We have an unbelievable spread laid out for our tailgate (the only damn one here at the tourney, dammit). We got brews, music, painted car, propane stove, hot dogs, all the makings of delicious egg mcmuffins... everything but one essential item: matches. KAHNNNNN!

As we scarf down our cold food, waiting to go in and check out Albany vs Stony Brook, I can't think about anything beside finding a place to pee in this parking lot. But I'm trying to think about today's BU-UNH matchup. Obviously the big variable is John Holland's ankle. If he goes, I think BU takes it easily - even if he's only 75%.

BU is a different team now than the one that lost to UNH in Durham (which was BU's last loss). We can actually play on the road now. Guys like DJ and Darryl have stepped up when John was out. The "Mildcats" are also playing like shit lately.

Dear Pat Hazel: please stuff Tyrone Conley every time he dares to drive into the lane.
Dear Dom Morris: don't be afraid to drive toward the bucket if you get it on the perimeter; we know you have the moves.
Dear Mike Terry Jr: do that offensive rebound/put-back thing you do.
Dear John Holland: please play and dominate.

OK. Need to go in and watch the end of this game. Matches never came. By the way - I still detest Vermont and their fans, but many of them walked by and were really nice. None had matches though.

Current drunk-score=7.5

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Broadus Interruptus: Bing Pulls Out

We're feeling pretty confident, pretty happy about our seeding situation and playing Binghamton this coming weekend at the tournament - after all, we just beat them by 40 points. But then....

...Binghamton finds a new way to embarrass itself. Just days before the tournament is set to begin, and after playing the entire regular season, they decide to sit out the tournament. WTF.

This is fine if Binghamton had finished 9th as expected. But they finished 5th, so it affects every single matchup this weekend! It eliminates the (Formerly) Stony Brook Invitational Play-In Game completely - am I getting a refund for the ticket package I bought that includes this game? Of course not.

The biggest swings of fortune happen to the BU and Vermont squads. Vermont should be playing #7 New Hampshire, a decent team that could get hot - instead, after Bing pulled their French military maneuver they'll play UMBC, the most hapless bunch of haps that ever happed. Meanwhile, instead of facing the team we just beat by 40, we play the team we lucked into a last second win over - and oh yeah, they happen to be the tournament's host team.

It's unfortunate, and I think the decision (whoever's it was - the league, the school, the state...) was wrong, especially for the players who stuck with the program. And BU came out on the bad end of it.

But at the end of the day, WE WILL PLAY WHOEVER STEPS ONTO THE COURT AT 2:30 ACROSS FROM US, dammit! We still have to win 3 games to survive.

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.

To Be the Best You Gotta Beat the Best: The Vermont Preview

Tonight is a huge game for our Terriers. The last two wins... they were nice. It's important to take out the UNH's and the Albany's that are near the bottom of the conference.

But tonight, Vermont comes to town. This is a different story, because BU is 0-4 against the best 3 teams (Vermont, Maine, Stony Brook).

If we fail to pick off any of these teams, we're going to be stuck finishing in the middle of the pack. Depending on how we do over these last 4 games, we end the season as high as #2 or as low as #5.

Vermont killed us in the first matchup this year. We kept Blakely under wraps, but the rest of their guys were hitting every shot they took. Luckily, we are MONEY at The Greek lately. Five of the last six games there have been wins.

Should be a great game - and it's on TV! That means I'm braving the snow to make it to the bar! Go Terriers!

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.

Get Excited: The New Hampshire Preview

New Hampshire Wildcats basketball, coming to an Agganis Arena near you... CAN YOU FEEL THE EXCITEMENT??

I know part of the plan to build excitement around the BU basketball team was to hold more games in The Greek, but I'm not sure that's working anymore. We barely had 1,000 for the Albany game, and they were giving away JERSEYS! Methinks the luster of having normal games in Agganis (as a gimmick to get more people to games) may be wearing off.

When it comes down to it, a game against UNH just isn't exciting to the normal student, even if it's at The Greek. That's because it's not so much of a big event anymore, especially when we're playing higher-profile opponents like Vermont and GW there this year.

My friends, prepare for the first sub-1,000 Agganis crowd ever (aside from an ill-fated Creed performance). I don't think the camou tshirts are going to save us, cool as they may be.

And this sucks, because we're finally getting good at playing there. Last time out, the Terriers sank a school-record 16 3-pointers (6 from Los!) en route to demolishing Albany. We have a winning record there this year.

When we played UNH earlier this year, we played OK but were lucky to escape with a win when their best player that day, Tyrone Conley, got hurt in the second half. UNH has never played in The Greek, so I'm hoping they suffer whatever befell the Terriers the first 5 years they played there. The Wildcats do not always set the nets on fire anyway, so that's my prediction for the game: UNH has shooting woes, BU wins by 10.

Playing for our tournament lives: The Hartford Preview

First, let me say that I was extremely excited about the win over UNH on Thursday. I was pretty down about the team's chances on the road. Thankfully UNH forgot how to shoot a basketball, and thankfully Corey Lowe put the team on his back and gave them a piggy-back ride to the win.

Jake and John had tough games - but you could tell the team was making a conscious effort to bring the ball into the paint, and not jack up another school record for 3-point attempts. We only tried 10, instead of 37 against Stony Brook. This time it was UNH making that mistake, going 4-31 out there (!) on their way to sub-30% shooting overall.

Today the Terriers travel to the location of this year's America East Tournament (Hartford 2010!!) to take on the Hawks. This is like the opposite of The Mighty Ducks: these Hawks are not good. That's not to say that we're going to win this game (anything is possible with the 2009-10 Terriers), but UHa is 2-12 with a 9 game losing streak. Draw your own conclusions.

Hopefully the Terriers will use their time to scout the place and make sure they are quite comfortable there when they return for the tourney. I hope they become experts on the Chase Family Arena. But how have we done in the past when scouting the tourney location?

Albany 09
1/8/09:
@ Albany 62, BU 61
Tourney:
UMBC 79, BU 75

Binghamton 08
1/6/08:
@Binghamton 69, BU 49
Tourney:
BU 68, Albany 64
Hartford 59, BU 52

Boston 07 (N/A)

Binghamton 06
2/14/06:
@Binghamton 74, BU 51
Tourney:
Vermont 64, BU 61

Binghamton 05
2/27/05:
@Binghamton 65, BU 48
Tourney:
Maine 47, BU 45

Boston 04 (N/A)

Boston 03 (N/A)

Northeastern 02
1/20/02:
BU 95, @Northeastern 88
Tourney:
BU 86, Northeastern 76
BU 63, Hartford 60
BU 66, Maine 40

So let's see here. We haven't won at the location of the AE Tournament during the regular season since 2002, when we won the whole damn thing. Clearly, the lesson here is that we need to take care of business today against Hartford, and everything will work out perfectly on the first and second weekends of March! Make it happen!

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.

I wonder if Snooki will be there!!: The Marist Preview

BU was able to take care of bidness against Bucknell last weekend, which I'm quite grateful for. But I have a bone to pick with the BU Athletic Dept.

I was unable to watch the game live, so I waited until late Sunday night to watch the video archive of the game. I even avoided the outcome of the game all day. Problem was, every time I tried to play the game, I got "The media you have selected is currently unavailable." This was maddening, since the whole reason I knew it was OK to miss the game was because they put up archives of all the home game broadcasts.

I tried again at work the next day. "The media you have selected is currently unavailable."

I tried AGAIN at work on Tuesday, still avoiding knowing if BU won or lost: "The media you have selected is currently unavailable."

WTF, I'm paying for this service, am I not? I am a subscriber to BU All-Access. I have an All-Access Pass, dammit! This is like going to an Alice Cooper concert with a backstage pass, only to be denied before Alice ever has a chance to explain what Milli-wauke means.

Even now, the archive is still "currently unavailable," so I had to rely on written accounts and the box score. Sounds like JOB had a great game, Corey played pretty well coming off the bench, Holland had an off-night, and Carlos and BJ had some clutch points down the stretch.

After a week off, we play again today, and then have another long layoff for finals before the next game. These breaks come at a good time. Our short bench means guys are tired, and maybe this will allow some players like Valdas and Corey to get healthy.

The Terriers travel to Poughkeepsie, NY, to visit the Marist Red Foxes. Some of you may also know that Poughkeepsie is also home to "Snooki" a.k.a. "Snickers" from newest awful/great show on MTV, Jersey Shore. This is one of those car wreck TV shows where you know you should look away but you just can't. Snooki is an annoying, loud, overtanned shrimp of a girl who gets obnoxiously drunk the first night, and while doesn't deserve what she gets later in the season, this may be one of the most gratifying images ever:


OK, back to basketball. Today's game is against Marist, another team which we cannot lose to. Marist is currently 0-6, including a 14-point loss to UNH and a 37-point loss to Hartford. I repeat, we cannot lose this game to Marist.

No rest for the weary: The New Hampshire Preview

See? What curse? BU took care of bidness Thursday night against Albany in Agganis, proving it once and for all that we can win there. Nine regular season games in a row is a nasty streak, but it ain't no curse. Ask the Cubbies.

How much more can be said about the way the team is playing. Seven games in a row, and they're not even letting them stay close any more. I guess all we can ask for is for the team not to overlook today's UNH matchup while looking forward to The Big One against Vermont on Wednesday.

The Albany win + the loss by Vermont means we're alone in first place by a full game for the first time in a long time. It's been said that we now control our own destiny - meaning if we win all the rest of our games, we lock up the #1 seed. But everyone forgets there's another team that controls its own destiny, and it's Vermont. If the Crapamounts win all the rest of THEIR games, they get the #1. And they get us at home. So I still wouldn't put us in the driver's seat.

That's what makes all the other games so important, starting today in Durham. And we're playing for the 4th time in 8 days, 3 of them on the road. We absolutely destroyed the Wildcats at home for our first conference win. I think UNH will do a little better this time so we can't sleep on them.

This Will Never Top the Last Game: The UMBC Preview

I still haven't gotten over last Monday's ridiculous win over Stony Brook. In fact, it took so much out of me that immediately afterward I contracted the worst flu virus ever. I am still now recovering from the flu (and the game), which is why I still haven't written about it. That's coming, along with photos, very soon.

But for now, we'll talk about tonight's UMBC game. The only thing about the last game that's relevant now is how tired our guys might be. John Holland played 60 (brilliant) minutes, and every other started played at least 47, because BU only played 7 guys in the whole game.

Luckily, the Retrievers also limit themselves to about 7 guys. Not only that, but a couple of them are hurt, including the best point guard in the conference Jay Greene. Greene had a concussion and it's unclear if he'll play... but based on Scott Brittain's experience, it may be weeks before he plays up to his potential again.

This is not last year's UMBC squad. These guys are not going to rip through the conference again. Maybe they'll repeat as champs, but it'll be a lot flukier if it happens this time. They are already 2-3 with losses to Stony Brook and New Hampshire, plus a blowout to Vermont.

With both teams shorthanded, I like the Terriers in this one.

Thanks for joining us, Mr. Brittain

BU's new look offense necessarily runs through the paint a lot more than the old one did. When you lose two of your best shooting guards, that's what happens.

That's why the re-emergence of Scott Brittain from the brink of obscurity couldn't have been timed more perfectly.


Scott had been a complete non-factor all season, after he started with his head injury. He scored a high of 3 points in the team's first 12 games. He played 7 minutes each in the humiliating losses to Delaware and Cornell. He didn't even get into the game during the humiliating loss to Holy Cross! Not only did the concussion slow him down from the start, but Coach wasn't happy with his effort/progress in practice which is why he wasn't getting any minutes. Coach said before the season that he was going to hardest on Scott out of anyone - he said that by the end of the season, he was going to either turn him into an All-Conference player, he was going to hate his coach's guts. For the first half of the season, I'm sure it was the latter.

But when TyLos went down, Scott was asked to step up out of necessity, and he responded. He played 26 minutes against Albany, scoring 10 points with 7 rebounds. He followed that with 15 points in the blowout of UNH. Maybe he's scoring more just because there are less options on the floor -- but he's looked a lot better out there... more agressive, less tentative.

How has this happened? Modern medicine still doesn't know everything about concussions. Although Scott was medically cleared to play after two games, he hasn't looked "right" until now. Maybe it just took him a full couple of months to clear his head. Or maybe Wolff's yelling at him in practice finally got through to him. Maybe he saw two of his teammates go down, see how bad they wish they were on the court, and realize he needs to make the most of his opportunity to be out there since he's able to play.

Whatever it is, keep it up Scotty!

Back to .500 in America East!

There's nothing like inviting UNH to town, if you want to ditch that 5-game losing streak.

Thanks to the Mild Cats, BU is back on the right track after a 31-point thrashing in The Roof. We didn't seem to be suffering ill effects, at least for this game, from the absence of TyLos. And we got a glimpse of how Dennis plans to run the team for the rest of the year without them.

Sadly, the Rod will not be a large part of the plans. Neither will Tunde. However, the Rod got a good 4 minutes of burn against UNH -- 4th man off the bench!! He's been a player Wolff has thrown in to a game in years past when he gets REALLY pissed at guys 1-8 in the lineup, and I expect that to continue this year.

In other news, John Holland is a man. Probably my favorite thing in the world is watching him play tight D at the top of the zone, watching him tip a pass and chase it into the backcourt -- and for about 2.5 seconds being overcome by goosebumps knowing that John Holland is about to throw down a ferocious breakaway dunk. Nice feeling.

Johnny scored 25 in both games last week - the 25 in the loss to Albany was almost more impressive since he was missing Corey Lowe and was trying to carry the team across the finish line by himself. But both games served notice that JH23 is out of his slump and can go toe-to-toe with any player in America East. For his efforts, John was rewarded with his second America East Player of the Week, and I salute him.

First look at the bracket matchups

Yes, the official bracket came out two days ago, and if you follow the America East enough to actually visit this blog, then this is probably not your "first look" at the bracket. But here it is anyway.


What you haven't seen yet is the BU Hoops Blog's thoughts on the first-round match-ups NOT involving BU (I know, it's outside of our area of expertise, but humor us). The parity in the league this year give this weekend the potential to be the most entertaining conference tournament in the nation.

The Stony Brook Invitational
#8 Stony Brook vs. #9 Maine

Jan. 6: @ Stony Brook 75, Maine 59
Feb. 23: Stony Brook 56, @ Maine 51

Stony Brook is wearing the home whites in the America East tournament, possibly for the first time ever. And they dominated Maine during the regular season, so things look good for the Mighty Seawolves. We make a point of driving to the Stony Brook Invitational Play-In Game every year to see what the Seawolves have in store for us. Last year, they rewarded us handsomely with buzzer-beating loss to Hartford after blowing a 20-point lead. Since the so-called "winner" of the SBIPIG goes on to get destroyed by #1 (except of course for that year when Stony Brook used their momentum from the game to beat one of the best BU squads ever...grrr), the REAL winner of the SBIPIG is whoever gets the drunkest. Let's see if we can defend our title.

Side note: This is the first tourney in 5 years we won't have the chance to heckle Popoko. Sad times indeed. Please read the High Roller's farewell letter to Popoko from last year's tournament. We will be on the lookout for new Stony Brook freshman who can fill Popoko's shoes for the next 4 years.

Quarterfinals
#1 UMBC vs. #8 Stony Brook/#9 Maine

Jan. 3: UMBC 76, @ Stony Brook 62
Feb. 6: @ UMBC 75, Stony Brook 63
OR
Jan. 12: Maine 77, @ UMBC 74
Feb. 28: UMBC 85, @ Maine 68

Based on regular season performance, we might expect to see Stony Brook sitting in this position, barely 12 hours removed from a SBIPIG victory. But it was MAINE that somehow beat UMBC at home this year! NASA scientists are still trying to figure that one out. You can bet that with all their weapons, UMBC will be ready for either one of them this time though.

Side note: I think it's kind of unfair that the winner of the SBIPIG has to face #1 so soon after that game. Let's break it down: The game ends at 9:00, and the next game starts at 12:00. That's 15 hours. You can take out:

30 mins getting dressed after the game.

1 hour traveling to and from the arena.

2 hours for dinner, breakfast and lunch.

45 mins for sex with team groupies.

1 hour for team showers (with or without groupies).

15 mins because someone is always late to the bus.

2 hours looking at film and preparing for a game against the toughest team in the league.

1.5 hours to warm up for the next game.
That leaves a grand total of six hours to rest and sleep and recover from a grueling 40 minute basketball game. I mean, I know #1 is supposed to get an advantage, but come on. I think it was Will Brown who was complaining last year about scheduling games too close together. Well, Willy B. never had to play with 6 hours of rest, did he?


#4 Vermont vs. #5 Binghamton

Jan. 3: @ Vermont 71, Binghamton 60
Feb. 6: Vermont 83, @ Binghamton 78

In my mind, this will be the most entertaining game of the day. On the Binghamton side, you've got coach Kevin Broadus coming off his hilarious 1-game suspension for fighting another coach - we'll see if he can keep his emotions in check. And on the Vermont side, you've got the best and most exciting player in the league in Marqus Blakely, who is more than happy to serve John Holland's only competition for the AE's best dunker. Unfortunately, Vermont is also the whiniest bunch of cry-babies since Jose Juan Barea. So get ready to see Mike Trimboli break out the water-works every time he gets called for a hand check on one of the Binghamton guards.

Side note: The cry-baby thing makes me thing of the game several years ago at The Roof when we bought a few packages of diapers and painted the No. 5 on them, and we waved them around and cried like babies every time Barea had a hissy-fit. Those were good times.

If the BU "Zoo" is reading this, you would be wise to take advantage of such a tactic. But please get rid of the pizza boxes. My god, those pizza boxes. Lame. Oh, and no storming the court on Saturday - you're in the #4/#5 game, and it's only the Quarterfinals.


#2 Hartford vs. #7 New Hampshire

Jan. 27: @ New Hampshire 74, Hartford 59
Feb. 17: @ Hartford 82, New Hampshire 63

This feels like a big opportunity for a nice upset. I kind of feel like Hartford is pretty weak for a #2 seed, and UNH has already shown that they can blow out the Hawks. Plus all the Albany and BU fans will be rooting for New Hampshire. Both of these teams will be chucking up 3's at an alarming rate - so depending on whether they go in the basket or not, this could be a really exciting game or an excruciating one.

Side note: It's hard to hate either one of these teams. Both have been hard luck losers for pretty much their entire time in the conference. They also always have among the least fans in attendance at the tournament (so get ready to hear a pin drop at this game). In past tournaments I have adopted these teams to root for since BU got knocked out so quickly. But I'm going to try my hardest to hate whichever one BU will face if we get by Albany.

We'll also get to see the 2nd and 3rd place finishers for Rookie of the Year (UNH's Alvin Abreu and Hartford's Morgan Sabia) face off, since John Holland wrapped up #1 last week with his fifth consecutive weekly award.

Finish strong

Back when BU was 2-5 in the conference (5-14 overall), the chances of BU going into the last game of the season guaranteed to end up with a winning record seemed right up there with my chances of shaking off this hangover anytime soon.

Today we play Albany for the chance to secure the #2 seed in the tournament (if Hartford loses to UMBC) and a date with UNH next Saturday.

With so much on the line, you can be sure the Albany fans will be out full force in their $9 fake leather purple jackets - it's cold out there! The High Roller will be there in person, so hopefully we'll get an accurate $9 jacket count.

[Update - 1:58 PM]
Via the America East site, here are the seeding possibilities for BU based on today's action:

Boston University
- Will be seeded second with a win and a Hartford loss
- Will be seeded third with a win and a Hartford win
- Will be seeded fifth with a loss AND a Vermont loss
- Will be seeded sixth with a loss AND a Vermont win

Vermont is beating Maine at the half right now, so unless we win it looks like we fall all the way to sixth.

The Race for #2

As this America East conference season winds down, one team (UMBC) has distinguished itself as the clear leader, and three teams (UNH, Maine, Stony Brook) have distinguished themselves as trailing the pack. What remains in the middle is a muddled mess of teams fighting it out for the 2-6 seeds.

A quick look to the right sidebar reveals standings that look like this (as of 2/26):

2. Hartford (9-5)
3. Boston University (8-6)
4. Albany (8-6)
5. Binghamton (8-6)
6. Vermont (8-6)

The big prize for any of these teams is the #2 spot. Landing in this position means a date with the significantly less scary UNH, and more importantly avoids and of the other 2-6 teams until the Semi-Finals. For BU, the coveted #2 spot is still within reach, but they need some help.

BU will not sweep any of the teams in the top 6, so winning a tie-breaker is unlikely (and even if it weren't, who the hell knows what tie-breakers the AE has set up). So winning the spot outright is BU's best chance. Here's how it could happen (only meaningful games are listed):

Wed, Feb 27
Alb at Bing

Thu, Feb 28
Hart at BU
UVM at UNH

Sat, Mar 1
Bing at SBU

Sun, Mar 2
BU at Alb
Maine at UVM
UMBC at Hart

None of that seems terribly unreasonable - and it would only require one win by UNH/Maine/Stony Brook (either UNH or Maine beating Vermont... and UNH always plays Vermont tough at home). Those game results would create this final standing:

2. Boston University (10-6)
3. Hartford (9-7)
4. Albany (9-7)
5. Binghamton (9-7)
6. Vermont (9-7)

Not bad. We can't control what any of those other teams do, but it all starts with takin' care of bidness ourselves, and that means putting a whuppin on UHa tomorrow night.

Happy Valentine's Day! I LOVE beating Vermont

The wins against UNH, Maine and Stony Brook were nice to build a little confidence. The destruction of Binghamton was a great game that proved we were ready to compete with anybody in the conference.

But this one just felt GOOD.

As a veteran of the Terrier-Catmounter Wars of 2002-04, watching them make the conference finals these past 3 years (and WINNING it the 2 years before that) has been torture. Ever since we made the tourney in 2002, they just always seem to be ever-so-slightly better than us.

That may still be true, and last night's 59-58 win is by no means equal to a conference championship, but it's really nice to walk into their house, out-play them for 40 minutes and prove that we still got some fight in us, even in what we thought was a down year.

The first half ended with a 4-point BU lead, and the story was defense. It seemed like BU stole the ball every other possession and pushed it up for a fast break. That's one thing I LOVE about this team... they're not afraid to run and they do it well.

Second half - remember how after the Binghamton game I wrote about the stepping on the throats thing? Yeah, not so much. BU pushed it out to a 14-point lead, which was great, but let Vermont claw back into it, culminating in the thrilling conclusion: what else, but Mike Trimboli missing a shot at the buzzer.

The Freep says it's BU's first one-point win since 2003. Winning this one, our fifth straight, against UVM made it that much sweeter.

Thanks for the Valentine, BU.

See you in Baltimore.

Sucks To SBU

Today we play against one of the 3 teams we can beat, the mighty Seawolves of Stony Brook.

BU had a week off to prepare for this game, but you have to wonder if any minds wandered to the Binghamton and Vermont games looming on Tuesday and Thursday. I kind of wish we had a whole week to prepare for one of those teams, but it is what it is.

This game is pretty important too actually. With a win, BU moves back to .500 in the conference!! Something like that looked pretty far off when we were 2-5 and languishing in 8th place, which is basically last place if you don't count Stony Brook, which I don't. BU is coming off 2 of its best wins all year: comfortable victories over Maine and UNH. I got to watch the UNH game at Porters, a bar that is almost always willing to throw on an obscure game for you. I kept waiting for a collapse, but none came and BU was in control the entire time. It's become a broken record lately, but John Holland and Scott Brittain were fantastic, and Corey Lowe dropped in 23 without even trying.

BU is playing for its first 3-game winning streak of the year, and hopefully peaking for the most important part of the season As Dennis Wolff said in the Freep, "We need to start putting a little run together or it's going to be too late."

Stony Brook for its part is coming off a W at Maine, except that it was 9 games ago. But as was said on the AE message boards, at least they have this guy going for them:

Prediction

Big game today at UNH. A win here would be great for us.

My prediction: BU 58-UNH 54