MEYER: A new era of excitement

I can remember the scene just as clearly today as I did the moment that it happened last March ‘-‘- I was standing in a crowded bar caddy-corner from Madison Square Garden, the place where I had watched my Louisville Cardinals handily beat Providence in the quarterfinals of the Big East Tournament earlier that day.

My eyes were fixed on a TV showing the Marquette-Villanova game when I caught something scroll across ESPN’s BottomLine:

Boston University fires men’s basketball coach Dennis Wolff after 15 seasons.

Despite the fact that I was probably the only person in the bar that gave a damn about Boston University basketball, I became crazed as question upon question began running through my head.

How did it get to the point of him getting fired? Was he asked to resign? Are any of the key players going to transfer? Who’s going to be brought in to replace him?

Among this convoluted train of questions and conjectures, there was one definitive answer that I kept coming back to: BU basketball was going to be heading in an entirely new direction and a new era was about to begin.

Weeks and weeks of deliberation and speculation came to a climax with the hire of a coach who would be trusted as the person to usher in this bright new future, a name that has now become familiar to many of us: Patrick Chambers.

Largely due to the fact that he had been a career assistant, many of us ‘-‘- myself included ‘-‘- had no idea who Chambers was and what we could expect from him. It almost seemed like I had more questions about the state of BU basketball after the hire than I did that fateful night on 8th Avenue.

However, the moment that Chambers stepped to the podium during his introductory press conference, these questions and concerns began to dwindle to the point of nonexistence. I walked into Agganis Arena that day still lamenting the fact that Richard Pitino or Tony Jones weren’t going to be the ones standing before me, and yet I walked out as a firm believer.

Call it a gut feeling or a reflex opinion, but when I left The Greek that day, I knew that BU had lucked out ‘-‘- they found the right man to lead the men’s basketball program to new heights.

Of course, a coaching hire can always generate some giddiness or a renewed sense of optimism, whether justified or not, but flashing forward six and a half months to where we are now, my thoughts and opinions haven’t wavered one bit.

It’s one thing to talk about overhaul and recreating the image of an oft over-looked program, but to put the right people in charge to execute this end is something entirely different, and it’s something that the BU Athletic Department and Chambers have more than succeeded on thus far.

This all began with a vision by Mike Lynch that is now starting to come to fruition. He saw the school’s respectable athletic teams ‘-‘- a championship hockey team, superb men’s (except of late) and women’s soccer and many other great programs that routinely win conference titles and earn postseason berths.

But what he saw was it was lacking something he felt could truly push this athletic department that much closer to being among the elite ‘-‘- and that is a top-flight men’s basketball program.

In Chambers, Lynch saw someone who not only shared that same vision of building a premier mid-major basketball power, but also a man who possesses many tools that make that dream that much closer to being a reality.

Even just a half a year into his tenure, Chambers has already done things that Wolff readily neglected during his 15-year stay.

He has made a concerted effort to reach out to the fans and engage the student body by setting up a Twitter account and by starting a blog complete with player interviews, the latest updates and an in-depth look at Terrier hoops.

While nobody really ever questioned Wolff’s ability to recruit, just this past week, Chambers hauled in three Philly-area prospects from the class of 2010 ‘-‘- two of which, Dominic Morris and Travis Robinson, are very highly-touted.

What does remain to be seen, though, is if Chambers can do what his job above all entails: coach. Although ‘Wolff-bashing’ has been popular since his departure, Dennis Wolff was not fired because he was a bad coach, but rather largely due to the fact that he could not consistently win conference titles and because of his overall failure to generate widespread interest and enthusiasm around his program.

With the energy and anticipation finally here and in place, what Chambers now has to do is to take a talent-laden roster and win with it.

An affable personality and a great attitude can go a long way for a college basketball coach, but only with conference championships and NCAA Tournament berths can Chambers truly create the, ‘Gonzaga or Xavier of the East,’ that he repeatedly alluded to when he boldly set his template for what he saw as a brand-new era of Terrier basketball ‘-‘- something that may end up being far easier said than done.