Terriers lose a pair of away games.

1/27 - Boston U Terriers v. Maine Black Bears - Alfond Arena - BU loses 56 - 54
This game was a hearbreaker from the very beginning to the very end.  BU went through a few stretches where you thought there were going to break away. But then in usual BU fashion they went cold for extended period of time while Maine continued to play consistently.

Towards the end is where I got emotional.  I was close to turning the game off actually.  But I left it on and BU overcame a ten point deficit in just under 5 minutes to actually tie the game with 2.9 seconds left.  I anticipated that this would go into OT, if BU could play good enough defense to not let them get a good shot off the ball would bounce off the iron and fall short. Finally things would roll our way.

It would not be so.  For years to come I will wonder what Coach Chambers said during that last time out.  I don't want to pretend to be a coach but this is what I would be telling my team given the same situation:

"Keep your arms up, don't foul, keep them out of the lane, AND don't let them get off a high percentage shot."

Those last two points were somehow lost. The Maine Black Bears got off a layup at the last second to win the game.  Let me repeat a layup.  BU played the worst defense they have all season in 2.9 seconds.  It's embarrassing to lose on a layup off of an inbound play with 2.9 left.  There is no excuse.  The only positive I bring out of this game is that with a double digit deficit so late in the game this Terriers team did not give up.

Other notes:

• Our eighth man and a key sub Tunde Agboola was injured during this game and it is not looking very good.  The injury could not have come at a worse time.

1/30 - Boston U v. Stony Brook Seawolves - Long Island - BU Loses 71 - 55
I did not get a chance to listen to or watch this game, I did look at my phone for occasional updates on the score.  BU went on their second game of a three game road trip and did what they seem to do best:  lose on the road to a team that is better than them.  This seemed a lot like the last time the Terriers played the Seawolves.

I hate using injuries as an excuse, so I never do and neither should Coach Chambers or the rest of the team.  I really don't care that the Terriers are dinged up. Our team needs to step up and our coach needs to prepare the team better for games. For the second time this year the Terriers looked really flat in the first minutes of the game and were never able to fully recover and find a groove (the other time was the Vermont away game).  When I checked the score for the first time it was 10 - 0 and Stony Brook led.  I checked several times and each time it looked about the same or worse than the first time I checked.  Eventually BU got bashed 71 - 66 after they played 40 minutes of mediocre Basketball.

This result infuriated me. Admittedly I was out to dinner and had a few beers so I may have overreacted.  The loss set off a series of tweets directed at Coach Chambers blaming him for blowing the season.  I think this might have been a little too harsh. When you are stuck in the moment you will say very irrational things.  But later it got me to thinking, what/who is responsible for the Terriers mediocrity this season? Who would be your scapegoat?

Was it the right move to fire Dennis Wolff and hire Pat Chambers?
This was a very surprising and controversial head coaching move during the offseason, and looking back right fully so.  The fresh look that that the Terriers were looking to get by making an unexpected coaching change just isn't there.  Here are a few things that have made this situation into a debacle.

• Almost all of the starters returning and all of the seniors are Wolff recruits.  When you have that many returning key starters and seniors to a team it would make more sense to keep the same system and let the coach have one more chance to perform.
• They hired a first-year head coach.  Coach Chambers has had zero head-coaching experience and only several years of coaching experience at Villanova. Now all of a sudden he is thrust into a head coaching position for a team with the highest expectations entering the season.  That is a tough position to enter into.
• BU is still plagued by injuries.  I don't know what this is.  My theory was that they played games at the beginning of the season, the non-conference games, like they were conference tournament games.  Their non-conference schedule was way too ambitious.  Tough games against tough opponents will take their toll.  It's not great to see a senior captain break his hand in practice.

I don't think it is Coach Chambers' fault that BU has performed way below expectations this year. I think the athletic director his staff and the university are to blame.  They made the wrong decision by firing Wolff and hiring Chambers. It was the wrong year to do it.  Wolff would've been on the hot seat and coaching for his job. He spent three years with most of these seniors, he is the one who can motivate and get this current team to perform well when it counts the most under pressure.  Coach Wolff should have been given another chance. Coach Chambers is a first-year head coach and has no experience, with a team that has very high expectations. He was not being set up very well to succeed.  I say this emphatically, especially with players he barely knows, coming into a high expectation season and playing a  non-conference schedule that was way too ambitious.  The BU athletic department basically pulled the trigger too early on the coaching change.  They started to rebuild during a non-rebuilding year.

Hopefully I will be proved wrong in March.

Other News and Notes:

• With the losses to Stony Brook and Maine earlier, BU falls to 1-4 versus the teams ahead of them in the standings and 5-0 versus the teams below them.  The Terriers are winning all of the games that they should win and losing all of the games that they should lose.  Right now they are the definition of a middle of the standings team.
• The Bracket Busters matchups were announced today.  BU was not picked for one of eleven games televised on ESPN. BU will travel to Delaware to take on the Blue Hens on February 20.
• I watched BU beat Northeastern in the Beanpot Semis tonight.  During the past week I have seen two BU Ice Hockey wins and two BU Basketball losses.  These two programs are run so differently, it's really baffling. How is it that the hockey team doe so well year after year yet the Basketball team always comes way short of expectations every year?

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First Ever Epic-Ultimate Terriers Basketball Blog Post

So I have not written a blog post in over a week, sue me it's my blog.  I have been busy with work, weddings and the NFL playoffs.  But to make up for it I am writing an Epic blog post, one that will be celebrated as a historic moment in my short blogging career.

To kick it off I wrote a letter to Coach Chambers (@Coach_Chambers). And then I included my thoughts on the three games that I have not written about yet and finally a preview of tomorrow's game versus top bear in the conference Maine.  As always these are my thoughts as a fan not as a serious journalist or analyst.

Dear Coach Chambers,

You only seem to tweet before games and after wins. What about after losses?  I was waiting for a tweet after the UVM loss, which you could not have been pleased about. Nothing.  To be honest your tweets are actually pretty boring and generic. To save you some time I came up with a few templates you can use:

• We had a good practice today we are getting ready for [insert team]. We are getting better!
• We are on the bus to [insert college campus] to play [insert team]. It will be a big game for us!
• A good win today against [insert team], we are continuing to get better.

Come on coach! I don't think you get this whole blogging or twitter thing at all.  We want to know what you are thinking.  We want to know what your team is thinking, We want to get inside your head. That's the whole point of Twitter. If I wanted know what you are doing I would just look at the Basketball schedule on the BU Athletics website.

I have to say I am bit disappointed so far about the level of excitement and enthusiasm you brought to the program so far. I thought you wanted to bring a young attitude and a fresh personality to this team.  Please materialize some personality soon. If not for me, do it for the program, do it for the fans.

Lastly, I apologize for being critical, and I love that you are the BU coach, but it needed to be said.  Coach Chambers please be less boring in your interactions with the public and with the media. That's all.

Your Fan,

Jimmy C

Onto some thoughts on some recent games past and future and the current state of parity in the America East.

1/17 - BU v. Vermont - Patrick Gym - BU loses 78 - 58

This was the last game I previewed about a week and a half ago.  Judging from what I wrote you could tell that I was genuinely excited about this game.  This was supposed to be the signature win of BU's young America East conference season.  I recorded this game on my DVR and was looking forward to watching it. Earlier in the season I talked about actually traveling to Vermont to watch this game live at Patrick Gym (and maybe I would've thought about this more seriously if the Jets didn't make it as far into the NFL playoffs as they did this year).  In hindsight, I am very glad that my plans to attend this game never progressed beyond the infancy stage.

This game happened on a Sunday as I was coming back to Boston from one of my best friend's weddings (Congratulations Kyle).  Sitting in the back of my friend's SUV I checked the score frequently.  With about 7 minutes left in the first half BU was down 28 - 3.  Was I reading this right?  When I went home and actually watched the first 13 minutes my nightmare was confirmed.

BU was spanked in this game by a Vermont team that looked like they would cruise to the America East title.  I was distraught. This was one of those losses that just punched me in the stomach.  If BU is going to play like this versus Vermont there is no chance that they will be able to win the America East Tournament Final, which at the time appeared it would take place at Patrick Gym in Burlington Vermont.

But then it happened, the stars aligned just like they had for my Jets a few weeks previous.  The rest of the America East started to beat Vermont. After beating BU and one more win versus the struggling Hartford Hawks, Vermont lost consecutive games to Stony Brook and Binghamton.  At the moment of this post BU is 6-2 and Vermont is 5-2, technically we lead the Catamounts in the America East standings. BUT, BU has played one more game than Vermont. I will touch on the parity in the America East later in this post.

1/19 - BU v. Albany - Agganis Arena - BU wins 79 - 59

I was pretty psyched to go to this game. No, not because the Terriers played Albany, I wanted a free Terriers  Basketball jersey.  As part of a promotion the first 1000 fans in attendance received a free jersey.  I did not get one and this upset me, I really wanted one.  I blame the T for being so damn slow.  I left my office at almost exactly when the whistle blew at 5:30, I did not arrive at the arena until 6:30, too late to receive a free jersey. They looked cheap but it would be cool to have one, maybe I will find one on eBay one of these days.

The game itself was not really that exciting.  To be honest for most of the first half I was sitting right next to the BU Dance Team, I was distracted by their snappy new uniforms.  The rest of the game was something we had seen earlier in the season, BU set a program record for most three-pointers in game with 16.  Previously, in the non-conference slate they set the record with 15.  To be honest I don't like so many three-pointers in one game.

I have this discussion with my father all of the time.  Is it really Basketball if all a team does is shoot three pointers and hope they make them?  Ultimately this is why the three-point line was moved back by a foot a year earlier. Teams recruited great shooters and unleashed fury from beyond the arc. What is more exciting a John Holland dunk or a John Holland three-pointer?  Exactly, 99 people out of 100 are going to say dunk. Check this out.

The only exception, is Corey Lowe's three-point attempts. They are actually really exciting. He will shoot NBA range three-pointers, four or five feet from beyond the arc, with a defender up close and personal, complete with a hand right in the face. Check this out.

The picture isn't that great but the shot he made was ridiculous.  Look at the arc on the ball and how far in the air that thing is, holy moly.  Corey Lowe is the only player in the America Easy who can make a three-pointer exciting.

The rest of this game was pretty boring. BU made a couple of exciting plays that were non-three pointers, most notably a Jeff Pelage dunk in the opening minutes.  Right away you knew if Pelage can dunk, then this was going to be all BU. If it weren't for the free jersey. I may have skipped this one like I skipped the UMBC game.  There's nothing more really to write, BU dominated a lesser team that they should've handled easily anyway.

1/23 -  BU v. UMBC - In Maryland - BU Wins 79 - 61

I would've been shocked if BU lost this game. I didn't watch the game, I didn't listen to the game, I just read about it on the BU Website.  The article itself is a lot of fluff actually.  How do you write about a game where nothing exciting happened whatsoever and one team beats the other team by 18 points?  You include a bunch of statistics. Three Terriers scored above 20 points, Lowe, Holland, and O'Brien, to lead the Terriers to their fifth win in the last six tries blah blah blah.

Who cares? It was UMBC who has won only one game this season.  I know there was an article in the Daily Free Press about UMBC being no cake walk, but really? Let's be honest with ourselves if the Terriers didn't win this game by 18 points I would be worried. I probably would have completely bashed this BU team on this blog.  A win is a win, that's enough about this game.

Parity in the America East Conference
Over the past week and a half something has happened.  Teams are beating each other.  There no longer is that one team or even two teams that rise above the rest as the heavy favorites.  Initially, after the BU v. Vermont game, I thought that team was Vermont. But then Vermont lost to Binghamton and Maine.  Stony Brook has lost to Vermont and Maine. Four of the nine teams have two losses or less and none are undefeated.  That means the only team with one loss at the halfway point is Maine, who the Terriers play in Orono Maine tomorrow night.

1/27 - Preview of Maine v. BU - Orono Maine
This is where we are, a win versus the Maine Black Bears would put the Terriers in first place in the conference.  At the beginning of this season season or even three weeks ago, I would not have believed that last sentence.  How does this game eclipse the Vermont game as a more important game for the Terriers in terms of the conference standings? And at this point in the season? I am baffled.

The University of Maine Athletics website has already posted a preview of the game, there is an even better preview on the America Least blog.  I am not going to say that Maine has been lucky so far and that this is a team the Terriers should beat.  Because I can't discredit what they have done.  They have quietly become the best team in the America East conference and have won 8 of their last 9 games.

BU should not be favored in this game.  Can BU win?  Of course.  Maine is historically in the middle of America East, they never suck but they are never the best. Right now they are enjoying their best start in conference play in a little over a decade since the 1999 - 2000 season.  They are on cloud nine in Orono.

I never thought I would be saying this but I would be excited and mildly surprised if the Terriers beat the Black Bears on the road.  A win over Maine would be what I thought a win over Vermont would've been, a signature conference away win.  A win would catapult the Terriers to their first spot at the top of the standings all season. Let's do it!

BU v. Maine 1/27 at 7 PM
Listen at 1510 AM

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