Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Wait...BU's season isn't over?

That's right after losing to Vermont in the America East final, the Terriers travel to Corvallis Oregon to take on the the Oregon State Beavers in the first round of the CBI Tournament. Tipoff is tonight at 10 PM Eastern.  Not sure you can watch it on TV but I'm pretty sure you'll be able to listen as always on 1510 the zone. Here is the preview on the BU website.

My first impression of this game was indifferent.  Over the weekend I was disappointed about our loss to Vermont in the final, but not I've come to recognize that this was s successful and great season for the BU Basketball team and the 9 seniors have worked hard and they deserve to play some postseason basketball.  It's not the NCAA or the NIT but it's something.  A win versus a Pac-10 team would be cool.

Over the past few days the one thing I have been thinking about this game is if President Obama will be listening or watching or following.  For those who don't know the coach for Oregon State, Craig Robinson, is Michelle Obama's older brother and brother in law to our country's leader and chief.  If he is listening tonight at 10, I wonder where and if he yells at the radio like I do.  As a player on the Oregon State team or one of the teams that plays Oregon State I think it would be pretty cool knowing that the President of our country could be listening or watching.  He actually showed up to a game when Oregon State visited George Washington earlier this year.

That brings me to my next point, I looked at both teams schedules.  The two teams only had one common opponent this year, the same George Washington.   Oregon state beat them by a narrow margin, whereas BU lost to them in a relatively close contest.  That's the only real comparison I have. 

Also taking a look at Oregon State's roster, there did not appear to be any stars on their team their highest scoring averaged just over 12 points per game, and the rest would spread out pretty evenly with a few players just averaging in the single digits.

Bottomline, if BU plays well on defense, they should be able to score enough to make this a competitve game.  That's the cool thing about these postseason turnaments that are not the NCAA, usually they include a mediocre or bad major conference teams and really good mid-major teams that have legitimate shots to beat their Major conference opponents. What the major conference opponents take for granted, the mid-major teams will capitalize on, just ask UConn who narrowly beat Northeastern last night and UNC who narrowly beat William and Mary.

Prediction: BU bearly edges out the Beavers, the Terriers may not be as talented but they have the will to win no matter what tournament they are in. Final score 65 - 62.

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