The Beginning: BU vs. Northeastern, Tomorrow, 7 PM, Be There!

Let me start off with an email (edited) I sent to some friends who are all going with me to the game tomorrow:


Dear College Basketball Fans,

I am writing to you because you love mid-major college basketball just as much as I do (well, that's probably not possible). We're going to go see the BU Terriers play the Northeastern Huskies at Matthews arena tomorrow night. Here's the plan:

• I get off of work at 5:30 (maybe earlier I will see what I can do).
• I will book from work and meet ya'll at Pour House for some pre-game beers. Hopefully I will arrive there at 6.
• After 45 minutes of pounding 22 oz. beers we'll head over to Matthews (about 0.6 miles)
• I think tickets will be $10 maybe $12, it definitely won't be sold out.
• Then we will watch the BU Terriers and their talented and very young team beat the Northeastern Huskies!

If you have any questions you can email me or phone/text (203-687-6907) me anytime tomorrow (I'll be working, but it will be slow, I'll be able to field some calls)

For a preview of some sorts you can visit my blog.

Looking forward to an awesome night of College Basketball.

Feel free to suggest any post-game activities.

-Jimmy C

THE RAMBLING PREVIEW (I'm not previewing the game or the season just the facts that we all care about).

This is it finally it's the start of another BU Terriers Basketball season.  To my surprise BU was voted the pre-season number one to win the America East conference (unfortunately these days that means a play-in game unless we only lose4 or 5 games all year).  Let's not get ahead of ourselves though, this is the fourth year in a row that BU has been named that honor and it has not turned out very well in that span, no NCAA appearances since 2002.  We all know that BU does not do well with high expectations (see 2004 America East Tournament).

I think this year can be different though.  This team is mostly Pat Chambers now.  The only key Wolff recruits remaining now are Holland, O'Brien, Pellage.  The rest of the team is transfers and freshman, very talented freshman (a group of freshman that I am going to name "Villanova North."  Why? Pat Chambers was the associate head coach under Jay Wright at Villanova before becoming the rookie head coach of BU last year.  And on top of that 6 of the freshman recruits are from the city of brotherly love).  It's a new and younger era.  I'm looking forward to players who are talented and have got swagger and hustle.  All indications are that this will be a different team "High Expectations" team than in previous seasons.  Plus (and I know I have previously been a critic) Pat Chambers is the fucking man.

You know who else is the man?  Senior John Holland.  He's coming off of a year that he was the America East Conference leading scorer.  This is a talented kid who in my opinion could've easily played in a major conference for a good team (plus he's from the mecca of MLB Baseball - Bronx, NY).  It will be very fun to watch him play at MSG in February versus Albany.

In conclusion I think the two biggest keys to this season will be how well the Pat Chambers recruits do and how well John Holland can do this year.  I think both will win coach of the conference and player of the conference honors.  Lock it up.    

Tomorrow is the first game of the regular season for the Terriers, they face the crosstown and former conference rival Northeastern Huskies at Matthews Arena.  It's going to be a great game.  Last year the Terriers beat the Huskies in OT, this year who knows. I can't wait to see all of the new faces and make some evaluations. finally the coolest part about the Terriers Huskies game tomorrow: this is the first time in 60 years that both of these teams have met each other in the first game of their respective seasons.

MY INVITATION

Anyone who reads this post and is excited as I am should come to the game.  I really don't care who you are (as long as your not Marqus Blakely, you are not invited).  See my letter above for info.

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The Corey Lowe Situation: Update

My theory is almost 95% correct.  The only difference is that I believed that Corey hired an agent, when in fact he only had contact with an agent, which is not illegal according to NCAA bylaws.  Today's Daily Free Press has a great investigative article that describes in great detail the course of events that led up to Corey Lowe's removal from the active roster prior to the Morehead State game. 

In short, Corey had been in "contact" with an agent on Saturday 3/20 but claims he did not break any NCAA rules.  Coach Chambers found out about the "contact" and removed him from the team before the Morehead State game.  Chambers could not know for sure exactly what happened on Saturday, so he took the precaution of removing Corey from the team to avoid any investigations into possible NCAA violations that could affect the future of the program.

This was a smart move by Coach Chambers.  If Corey was going to be in direct contact with an agent he should've consulted with Coach Chambers especially if he wanted to remain on the team for the rest of the postseason run.  I don't fault Corey that much though, he made a small mistake that in the long run is going to have almost no affect on his BU legacy.  I am going to remember the four years he poured his heart and soul into this program, not the two games (which he wasn't going to play in anyway) he missed at the end of his final season because of a small mistake.  Corey you still my boy

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Season Wrap Up Part 1 of 3: The Corey Lowe Situation

The BU Terriers season was probably one of the more eventful and dramatic in recent history.  Before the season began it looked like BU was poised to to make it's first NCAA tournament appearance since 2002. However, BU returned 9 seniors all Dennis Wolff recruits, but did not return their head coach and commandant Dennis Wolff.  Before the season, in an unexcpected move to shake things up, BU got rid of their most winningest coach and hired the associate head coach for the Villanova Wildcats, Patrick Chambers.  In his first year as a head coach of any team, he took over a very experienced and talented squad that his predecessor almost entirely constructed.  So many story lines, so many moments, what a season the Terriers had.  In the last  three games they beat Oregon State, they lost Corey Lowe, the third highest scorer in BU history, beat Morehead state in overtime and lost to Virginia Commonewelath in the CBI semifianls, what a dramatic end to a very fulfilling and eventful season . As fans we can only hope that the Terriers put out an even better product to play under The Roof and within the walls of Agganis Arena in the years to come.

The Corey Lowe Situation
I think this came as a shock to everyone who was BU fan.  After BU slaughtered Oregon State in the first round of the CBI, Corey Lowe unexpectedly left he team before the Morehaead State game.  I didn't learn about this until the Morehaead State game,  And I like a lot of other fan discovered this when I went to the Morehead Sate game on Monday.  I watched the game, and I saw a lot fo our stars from this year out there but within almost five minutes I noticed Corey Lowe wasn't on the floor and he wasn't on the bench.  He could've been in the stands but I didnd't see him the entire night, where was he? My first thought was that something happened to either him or his family, I was concenred.  I learned after the game that he "moved onto the next chapter of his life."

I really wasn't sure what this meant at first.  Why would the third highest scorer in BU history (that is 101 years of BU Basketball) just leave unexpectedly? In the coming days it became apparent that the "next chapter" meant playing pro ball in Europe.  Still, why leave the team?  You are one of the best players in BU history (again that's 101 years of BU basketball).  Pat Chambers (for all purposes of my upcoming theory we will give him the benefit of the doubt) said that everyone involved with the team supported Corey's decision to leave.

So my theory is this.  Corey was not expecting to play this far into the postseason.  He didn't know what his chances were of playing on a professional level. As an NCAA player he is not allowed to receive advice from scouts or agents about going pro. Corey was anxious and he knew that if he got injured in the the final games of his at BU it would severely hurt his chances of a pro career.  What did Corey do, he hired an agent but kept it quiet, he wanted to see out his last games in a BU uniform but wanted to get advice about his future.  In a sense Corey wasn't thinking about the present he was thinking about the future. 

On the plane ride back to Boston from Oregon State, Corey approaches coach Chambers who is studying the scouting report for Morehaed Stat (wishful thinking Coach Chambers probably didn't have a scouting report printed out yet, but I like to thnk that my team's coach had a scouting report in his hand withing minutes of knowing who his next opponent would be).  When he speaks to Coach Chambers he explains that he is already thinking about a pro career but he would like to remain with the team. Chambers gets suspicious and eventually finds out that Corey has in fact hired an agent. Chambers and Lowe go back and forth for about 15 minutes.  Lowe wants to remain with the team but wants to have a limited role.  Chambers says no, he either plays with a full role or not at all.  Also, he says to Lowe, "if you have already hired an agent, maybe it's best if you stayed away from the team, we don't want to have any future sanctions against us."

Corey was BU's third highest scorer (the third time I've said this), he just got a little too anxious.  I guarantee if BU was one and done in the NCAA tournament that this would not even be as big of a story as it is.  I cannot fault Corey and I cannot fault Coach Chambers. They were both looking out for their best interests.  However, Corey's best interests may have been slightly selfish and Chambers's best interest were all about the team.  I'm disappointed in Corey but I'm not one to hold a grudge for long.  Corey's career is going to be defined by what he did in four years not what happened in the last week.

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In the next two parts of my season wrap up:

• BU beats Morehead State at The Roof .
• BU is defeated by VCU.

Also to come in the offseason a recap of the year and a preview of next.

AE Tournament 2010: BU stuns SBU, advance to Final at UVM

3/7 - BU v. Stony Brook - America East Semifinal #1 - BU wins 70 - 63

BU Recap
Boston Globe Recap

I have not been more excited for a game all season than this one, and I was never disappointed (except for maybe the first five minutes of the second half, but I will get into that later). BU is in the final two, they went into Hartford and did what they needed to do - win two games.

The Atmosphere

Let me describe the atmosphere to give you the full flavor of the game.  I went into this game, like I had the day before with my father Vito and in the same BU Basketball shirt I wear to almost every game.  This time instead of sitting behind the basket, we sat at half court about four rows up, surrounded on three sides by UVM fans.  Before the game we went to this tent in the southwest corner of the Gym for a coupe of beers.  (This actually surprised me that there was a beer tent on a college campus connected to the game.  They roped off an area and you could not bring a beer outside of that area, they had TV's set up, some pretty fancy food and a place where you could make your own signs, with very limited profanity retrictions).

Once the game started I started rooting and shouting for the BU Terriers like any BU fan would. But I noticed something else; the Vermont fans were also rooting for BU (not quietly rooting, they were pretty loud for most of the game, they were doing cheers, clapping, standing up and screaming at the ref).  I was shocked.  I immeidiately resented all of the Vermont fans surrounding me, they're BU's biggest rival and they are rooting for us? Then I realized why, because of the format of the America East conference tournament, if BU beat Stony Brook and UVM beat UNH, UVM would host the championship in Burlington, VT, because they would be the higher seed.  Even after realizing this, I still resented UVM fans, I wanted UNH to win in the next game but I wasn't rooting for them.  It's like being a Yankees fan and for some reason, some odd situation happens, where Red Sox fans start rooting for the Yankees because it somehow benefits the Sox if the Yankees beat another team (there has to be some made up word or term for this situation, if not I am fielding suggestions).  This is completely unaccepteable.  They are rooting for something that their team cannot control, it's idiotic and I hate it.  Hopefully, come Saturday at noon on ESPN2, every one of the UVM fans who was rooting for BU will come to regret it.

Another person rooting fervently for BU was my father. As per usual when he came to one of these events he bought a hat of the team he was rooting for. I appreciated the support, it felt like I was watching the game with another BU alumni or BU fan.  He was actually getting more heated than the BU alumni occupying the one side of us that was not UVM fans.  He even got more heated than myself on occaision.  A couple of times when the ref called a bad foul that went against BU, he stood up and started screaming at the top of his lungs at the ref.  And we were four rows from the scoreres table, the ref definitely heard him, a couple of times I had to tell him to calm down.  When Coach Chambers got his technical foul, I was convinced that the ref was T-ing up my dad for something he said not the coach of BU.  This I had nothing against, I loved this, I was so glad he came with me.

Then there were the people that were rooting for SBU.  They came in force.  At one point during the game I tweeted a twitpic (see below) of the SBU student section, the word "Seawolves" all nine people who spelled out the plural form of their teams mascot outnumbered the total BU student section, if you read my blog post on Terriers Basketball attendance and why it was so poor, especially among students, this seemed to be on par.  It was more of a home game for Stony Brook and an away game for the Terriers.  The easiest way to recognize who has more fans at the arena when a game is played at a neutral site, listen to the noise during foul shots.  When BU was taking their shots from the charity stripe the arena was significantly louder than when SBU took their shots (surprisingly though, BU held the advantage in foul shots made, SBU missed more than half of their chances, maybe this was the difference in the game).

Stony Brook Student Section

BU Student Section (to be fair there might be a few more this was taken during the horn malfunction in the first half)

 

The Game

The most exciting game I have seen all season.  The atmosphere was electric and I found myself actually being nervous for all of the players and coached involved.  This was the biggest game Coach Chambers has ever coached and the biggest game BU's seniors have ever played.  Keep in mind, BU has not been to the conference championship since 2003 and has not won the conference tournament since 2002.  A win in this game would bring BU to a game they haven't been to in over half a decade.

I'm dividing this game into five parts.  I'll write a paragraph on each:

• The first 3 minutes of the game
• The rest of the first half
• The first 5 minutes of the second half
• The middle of the second half
• The last 4 minutes of the game

In the first 3 minutes of the game I was discouraged. Right away I was thinking "oh no."   It's going to be one of those games.  I am coming into the game all excited and pumped up and right way the team is deflated, Muhammad El-Amin, this year's America East player of the year hit three straight from the beyond the arc.  He needed to be stopped.  It was evident in order for BU to stay in this game El-Amin needed to be nuetralized for the rest of the game and to a certain degree he was.  in the remaining 37 minutes he only added 11 and finished the game with 20.

The rest of the first half was the Core Lowe Show.  He was making deep deep three-pointers.  All around me I was listening to UVM fans just saying "WOW, how did he make that shot?"  Coach Chambers knew what Lowe was doing, the fans knew what he was doing.  I just smiled and knew, like I mentioned in my preview, if Lowe and others could stay hot from three the Terriers will win this game.  But that was not the only story of this portion of the game, BU's defense did a fantastic job, limiting SBU to only 15 points in the last 17 minutes. I was hoping they would carryover both their defensive and offensive performances over into the second half.

At halftime BU led 37 - 24.

The first five minutes of the second half punched me in the gut.  I was twice as deflated when BU allowed SBU to go on a 16 - 0 run to start the second half and give up the lead that they spent so much time building in the first half.  I and every fan in the Arena was in panic mode, completely in shock that they allowed this to happen and so were Terriers. 

At the start the middle of the second half Coach Chambers decided that he had enough. He called time out and got pissed.  For about a minute, between when the time out was called and the band started playing, one entire half of the arena could hear Coach Chambers yelling at his players, he needed to start a fire or BU was going to see this one slip away.  Whatever he did worked, BU didn't take the lead but they kept it within at least 5 points the entire time.  Still they were getting frustrated, and so was I that we were not able to pull closer. 

In the last five minutes of the game, all of that frustration culminated with a stupid foul called against BU.  Coach Chambers got emotional and got a technical foul right away.  He was saying to his team" "I'm doing everything I can to win this game, I want it bad, how much do you guys want it?"  The players responded, they went back to finishing the easy baskets and playing great defense.  To end the game they went on a 9-0 run to lock up the win, and advance to the final Saturday noon ESPN2 at Burlington against the only America East team they have not beaten so far this season: The Vermont Catamounts.

Random notes and thank yous

• Thank you to the Albany fan who sold us his $300 worth of tickets for $20 because Albany made an early exit, the seats were awesome, I even ended up selling one for $10. 
• During the Stony Brook game, Tina Charles of the UConn Huskies women team, came in halfway through the first half, just after her Huskies beat Syracuse for their 70th straight win an NCAA women's record.  Thanks for your interest in America East basketball Tina!
• Thank you to my father Vito, for providing me with transportation to and from all of the games this weekend.

That about wraps up this post.  I'm going to add some pictures to this post later tonight.  Also, stay tuned later this week for mor posts leading up to the much anticipated BU v. UVM face-off on Saturday.

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BU loses to Vermont in a Nail-biter

2/9/10 - Boston U v. Vermont - BU loses 76 - 75 

Despite the 9.4 seconds left this would be the final score

Ugh.

This was an awesome game to watch up until the last 9.4 seconds of the game.  BU played their best game all year, but they lost.  The way that they lost makes this a very hard loss to swallow and write about.

With a little more than a minute left BU was leading by four points, they would never score again and lose by one.  With 24.1 left on the clock Vermont races the length of the court and scores with 9.4 seconds left.  Coach Chambers calls a timeout and sets up a play that would not even a produce a single shot.  Because at the 4 second mark Corey Lowe would bounce the ball off of his foot out of bounds to give it back to UVM.  The Catamounts inbound the ball and BU fails to commit the foul that they need to keep the game going.

This is the most heartbreaking BU loss in recent memory.  What if anything can the Terriers take out of this? I really don't know, nothing positive.  The way they played was very good but they way they lost seems to negate everything positive.  BU needs to win out to have a decent chance of being in the top 4 of the conference.  The odds of them hosting the conference championship are almost zero.  There is really no excuse this time, most of the Terriers were healthy.  It's been a season full of bad breaks after bad breaks.

Is it too early to be looking forward to next year? Yes, if the Terriers want to win the conference tournament and go to the tournament, they have to do it this year.  Next year's team, except for Holland and Jake O'Brien, will be too inexperienced to make any sort of serious run.  This year was supposed to be THE year and still can be, everyone is equal in Hartford (unless your the 9 or 8 seed in which case you have to play an extra game).

Game Notes:

• True to his word my friend Eric came with me to this game and said it was an exciting game.  He doesn't understand why the Terriers don't draw more people.  I am still wondering the same thing.
• I was one seat away from being on the jumbotron, I did get my hand in there. Damn.
• I think this was my best game in terms of pictures, check them out below.

Next Up:

2/13/10 4 pm - Boston U v. Hartford - Case Gym

Listen: 1510 am

  Siriutis free throw

I think John Holland playing defense

Great shot of Agganis Arena

The Terriers last lead

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Holland-Lowe score a quality win versus the Hartford Hawks

BU wins what will forever be known as the "Holland-Lowe Show."  The junior and the senior put up a ridiculous display.  Holland scored 32 points and Lowe scored 31.  As the recap on the BU site notes this is the first time in the entire history of the Boston University Basketball program that any two players have scored above 30 points in one game.  The amazing part, BU scored 84 points which means everyon else on the Terriers scored only 21 points.  The Holland-Lowe dynamic duo had only 7 points less than the entire Hartford Hawks team.

Both Lowe and Holland were impressive, the rest of the team was pretty pedestrian (except for Carlos Strong who added 14 points).  With Tyler Morris out it's pretty apparent that the Terriers are going to rely on their two best players Holland and Lowe to carry the team when they are playing lesser opponents.  I was disappointed by Jake OBrien's no show in this game.  And the bench scored 3 total points when Valdas Siruitis hit an early three.  The thing that this team lacks the most is depth.  They've returned a lot of seniors but with injuries almost all of them are accounted for in the starting five.  It's terrifying to say this, but BU is just one more injury away from becoming a bottom-dweller in the America East.  When they are good it shows, but only versus the lowly teams, versus mediocre or good teams they struggle.

What It Means

• BU wins it's second in a row versus a inferior opponent and doesn't show the kind of all around depth you would see from a champion
• BU is still growing as a team, they are getting better and are a long way from the ever elusive NCAA tournament berth.
• The schedule makers made it pretty easy for the Terriers to win three straight, next up is the worst team in the conference UMBC.

Random Notes

• This was my first time going to watch a BU Basketball game on the road, I want to especially thank my roommate John Lewis for the ride there and my father Vito Castignoli for the ride back to my home in CT.
• Reich Family Pavilion is a great place for a mid-major College Basketball game.  It should be a great place for the America East Championship, I can't wait.
• This was the first time used my camera extensively in the game, see how the pictures came out below. Unlike last time there were no technical difficulties with the twitter.  I might even get up a video soon.

View from outside the arena

John Driving to the game

The empty Hartford student section

Corey Lowe brings it up the floor as Coach Chambers Barks out a play.

The Holland-Lowe duo leads BU to victory 84 - 70

Next up:

Boston U. v. UMBC

Case Gym 1/12/2010 7 PM

Listen: 1510 AM

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Terriers Out -played, Lose to Stony Brook 84 - 75.

Was I excited going into this game? You bet I was.  I arrived a little late, BU was up by a few, I sat right behind the BU bench so my friends watching on NESN might be able to see me in the background.  This was the conference opener.  BU is preseason number one and the Stony Brook Seawolves were preseason number four.  I thought, this is a great way to show New England that BU will be a force to be reckoned with in the America East Conference this season, instead I think the Terriers showed that they are just and average to mediocre team early in the slate.  Hopefully the Terriers will be able to learn a lot from this game, and put up some conference wins sooner rather than later.

BU was just outmatched in this game.  Rebounds and turnovers were about the same with Stony Brook holding a slight edge in both categories.  BU's field goal shooting was horrible, they shot .377 from the field.  They committed a ridiculous amount of fouls compared to the other team (to be honest I thought we were getting hosed in terms of fouls and I let the ref know on occaision what I was thinking. If there weren't kiddies there I would have easily dropped at least a bakers dozen worth of F-bombs).  I think the one plus was the performance of Jake O'Brien.

Jake O'Brien's emergence over some recent opponents is a huge plus for the Terriers.  He and John Holland should anchor a team that is losing a lot of seniors next year.  Jake O'Brien has been BU's version of the answer he can do it all, shoot the three and box out down low.  I'm excited to see this kid do more in the future.

As for Stony Brook, I have to give them a lot of credit.  They went into an actually pretty full Case Gym and they took care of business.  Bryan Dougher made an outrageous amount of three pointers throughout this game (it was very reminiscent of Dayton Rob Lowery's performance).  Dougher was hitting almost everything, he led a team that hit 12 three pointers in 20 attempts.  This is no coincidence, I don't think the Terriers are doing enough to defend against the three.  A lot of these are wide open looks.  I said it after the Dayton game and I will say it again, you can't give up this many threes to an oppoenent and expect to win. Coach Chambers needs to make this a focus when going over film this week.

Random Notes:

• Case Gym, as mentioned before, was surprisingly full for this game.  Which was a little bit more surprising considering that all of the students are still on break. However, not that many students show up anyway so I don't know how much of a difference this would have made.
• I thought whoever brought the "let em play" sign was a genius.  However, I feel as though the ref took this as a slight and called more fouls on BU than they did on Stony Brook. 
• Message to the Refs: C'mon really!? Call a foul on the other team! 25 - 15 is pretty lopsided.
• I did take some real-time pictures that I was going to tweet during the game but did not get a chance until after the game.  Murphy's law dictated that my phone must run out of battery at halftime as I was about to tweet the pictures (bee below).
• Let me know what you think of the pictures, I think they could be better (click on the pictures to view a larger version).  I just got a Motorola Droid for Christmas (thanks mom) and it includes a 5 megapixel camera. 

During a first half timeout

Probably one of Bryan Dougher's many three pointers

Next up:

Boston U at New Hampshire

1/7/2010 at 7 PM

Listen: 1510 AM

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