#10 Egregiously Omitted Summer Story: Hot Dog and Jesus break blog silence

The BU fan community was rocked last year by the graduations of icons Hot Dog and Jesus and the subsequent cessation of their blog.  Steadfast supporters through it all, these guys had the good sense to quit while they were ahead (unlike me), but in doing so left a massive void on the sidelines of all BU sports and in the online commentary space.  Who was going to do the yeoman's work of amassing photos of all the dance team members so that we could rate and drool over them?

I knew the Hot Dog, at least, was around for BU's championship run last year -- in fact, it was he and I who were partly responsible due to our good-luck BU Dog Tags (U74431920, represent). 

Needless to say, Terrier Nation was clamoring for a voice of reason, and it (re)appeared on July 21 when the Hot Dog and Jesus Blog arose like Lazarus from the ashes to give an update on all things Terrier Hoop.  Yes, there was no reason for us to worry; Hot Dog and Jesus have been watching over things from afar.

While HD was back for a day, we don't know if he'll be contributing on a regular basis this season.  My guess is, sadly, no.  Which means that massive void in the BU fandom still exists.  Who will take the mantle of the mega-fans of BU?  Time was, what BU hoops lacked in numbers we made up for with intensity.  I'm not even sure that's going to be the case now.

BU students, prove me wrong.  I want to show up on Friday and see, if not thousands of you, maybe just 5 or 10 who are REALLY nutso intense about it. But thousands would be better.  Maybe this call to action, written by a very devoted BU fan himself, will help.  But I know as well as anyone that variations on this column (with slight changes to the title, byline and a few adjectives) is re-printed in the Freep every year, and nothing ever changes.

What will it take to make a difference?  The Hot Dog may have said it best in his return to the interwebs: "It's BU basketball. On your feet."

There's no place like home

There was yet another Freep column today about which building BU should play basketball inside of. The Hot Dog has established in the past that he is strictly in favor of Case Gym as the home for BU basketball. The guy who wrote yesterday's article, known to Freep.com readers only as "MEYER," is in favor of playing our home games at Harry Agganis Arena. I thought I'd weigh in.

First, the Hot Dog's case for Case stems mostly from the performance of the current and recent teams, in terms of winning percentage and shooting percentage. The reality is, those things are going to correct themselves back to the mean in time. There is no Agganis Curse, as Coach Wolff rightfully insists and I'm sure the HD knows this. But Hot Dog makes good points about practice time and comfort level on the Agganis floor that are valid - but I think those are things that will improve on their own over time as well. The Terriers won their fifth game at The Greek this year, and looked more comfortable than I have ever seen them play there in their win over Albany. They play the last game of the season there against Hartford, and I'm predicting the comfort level will continue to improve with each game.

I disagree with MEYER's original complaint that BU's "big deal" of a Bracketbuster game should have been played at Agganis; it would have been a big deal if it were a real Bracketbuster on TV, but it wasn't... and if we had gotten a TV game, I believe it would have been held at The Greek. But he/she makes good points about many teams having separate practice facilities, about The Roof being the smallest AE facility BY FAR, and about impressing recruits with our nice new arena.

Look, we are not filling up either gym. Attendance at Case is probably hovering somewhere around the 500 mark. While it's only marginally better at Agganis, it looks bad no matter where we play. Might as well give the fans a thrill by being lonely in a big-time arena.

And about the fans. Many fans are attached to The Roof, including me. They say it sounds louder in there because every is closer to the action. But they said the same thing when the hockey team moved from Walter Brown Arena to Agganis. And they were right to an extent, but I don't think anybody is complaining about it any more.

The bottom line is that if we have an A+ facility on campus, we should use it. Playing there more often should alleviate the comfort concerns of the players, and playing some lesser opponents there should get that winning percentage back on the right track. As far as attendance is concerned, it sucks right now no matter where we play. The only thing that can fix that is winning. And that has little to do with where we play the games.

Be Perfect, BU: The Marshall Preview

I tried to watch We Are Marshall last night, to get inspired for this afternoon's game against the real Marshall. But the video store was out of it, and the closest thing I had was Friday Night Lights which I had never seen.

Truly inspirational. And you can picture Coach Wolff in that locker room motivating the Terriers to victory just the way Billy Bob Thornton did. Well, maybe not exactly the same.



The game today will be played at lovely Agganis Arena. A lot's been said this week about whether BU should be playing more of their games at The Greek or if they shouldn't play any at all. I've written about this before, and I'm firmly of the mind that BU should be playing games there - in fact I love this half-and-half arrangement they have now. The shooting percentage numbers are lower there, for sure - but I believe that's caused by the quality of the opponent we host there.

A week and a half ago, these same Terriers shot 55% in a win in Northeastern's Matthews Arena. The general shittiness of Matthews aside, it's a pretty similar setup to Agganis: it's located on top of a hockey rink; there's seats behind the baskets. And I don't think the Terriers have been coming over to practice in Matthews Arena on their off days. So the idea that BU is unable to shoot well in Agganis for those reasons simply doesn't hold water.

However, I love that the term "curse" is thrown around now. Here's D-Wolff:

“I vehemently disagree with the idea that there’s any curse at Agganis,” BU coach Dennis Wolff said. “Agganis is a state-of-the-art building. It’s one of our home courts. It’s great to play in there and that’s how we have to look at it.”

And if there's a team to break the "curse" against, it's Marshall. This is not the same team that destroyed us 70-47 last year. And we're not the same team either - that was when Tyler was still hurt, Johnny H. was still coming off the bench, and C-Lowe was on his mental health vacation.

This year's Marshall Thundering Herd come into The Greek at 1-4, with losses already to Wisconsin-Green Bay, Morgan State and East Tennessee State. Not lighting the world on fire quite yet.

This is BU's second chance (out of 3) this year to lay the smack down on a major conference opponent, since Marshall's coming from the Conference USA. Make it happen.

Making amends for the UMBC game

As part of our effort to add 32 pieces of flair to our humble weblog, I had big plans for the big BU vs. UMBC matchup back on February 17th. Loyal readers might remember that we never actually wrote anything about that game, despite the fact that it was actually a game that I could go and see in person, AND it was on TV, AND it was a huge game for BU.

So I went to the game, and was able to get B-Wags to come with me, and I even Tivo'd it to try and put video highlights up. But then I dropped the ball. I kept trying to figure out how to transfer Tivo to the computer, cut the video into clips, successfully put them on to YouTube... and nothing ever got written about the game.

This is a familiar pattern for those who have looked forward to reading about our experiences at the America East tournament the last two years. There is so much to write about and we always have big plans for it, but there is almost TOO much to write about and anything less than a full report seems lame. Also, we are always too drunk for the whole time. So we end up not writing anything while we're there, despite the pure gold that we're witnessing, and by the time we get around to it, nobody really cares anymore since the season is over.

Well that's going to change right now. The following four videos are some of the highlights of this amazing game, a game that I called one of the best AE games I have witnessed in person. Everyone was making shots for both teams, tons of ties and lead changes, and the lead never went above 4 points for almost the entire game... UMBC just came out a little ahead at the end of 40 minutes. (And by the way, we hope to put up more videos, so you can subscribe to our YouTube channel if you wish)

Now, B-Wags was at last year's AE tourney, but he had never seen John HOLLA in person (and I'm permanently borrowing that phrase from the Hot Dog). I promised B-Wags a mammoth dunk from Johnny (much like I had promised Burger Man against Maine), and late in the second half, Johnny delivered:


The next highlight came near the very end of the game, just over a minute to go, BU down by 3. Corey decided to take matters into his own hands:


Finally, these are the "un-highlights" of the game. These are the last two possessions for BU, both under a minute left and trailing by a possession. Poor Scott Brittain - undeniably having a great season, but this was not his game...sigh: