Home Stretch: M. bball one game away from NCAA tournament

The Boston University men’s basketball team is not going to crack.

All season long, BU coach Patrick Chambers and his squad have been preaching the benefits of taking it one game at a time, getting better with each test and treating each contest like every other.

It should come as no surprise that less than 72 hours removed from the America East Conference championship game against Stony Brook University to be held at noon on Saturday at Agganis Arena, Chambers and his resilient group are as calm, cool and collected as Arthur Fonzarelli when he hit the juke box or Cool Hand Luke when he shook the world.

“It’s the championship game,” said junior forward and tri-captain Patrick Hazel. “It’s huge. But we can’t fall asleep on anybody. We have to come in with the same mindset that we’ve had the entire year. It’s the championship game. Everything is on the line, but we just look at it as another regular season game.”

Because the fifth-seeded Seawolves (15-16) upset top-seeded University of Vermont, 69-47, in the semifinals of the AE tournament on Sunday, the Terriers have the benefit of playing the championship game on their home court at Agganis Arena. A win would clinch an AE championship and a coveted bid to the NCAA tournament, both of which are accolades that the Terriers have not won since 2002.

Saturday will mark the first ever AE championship game for the Terriers (20-13) at the Greek, but for junior guard and tri-captain Matt Griffin, the game is what is important, not the venue.

“I don’t think it matters where we play,” he said. “We’re just excited to be in the championship game. We could play outside in the backyard or on a playground for all I care.”

While Chambers echoed Hazel’s sentiments regarding Saturday’s status as ‘the next game on the schedule,’ he also acknowledged the fact that a championship game at home will benefit the BU basketball program in the long run.

“I think it’s great for our university,” Chambers said. “I think for our program, it’s just great to have a game on campus. It’s unfortunate that everybody is going on spring break. Hopefully, some people can rearrange their plane ticket or their train schedules or their rides home, but I think it is going to be awesome and hopefully this sets us up for years to come because we have a bright future.”

BU enters the matchup on a 10-game win streak following a nail-biting 55-49 victory over University of Hartford on Sunday. The Seawolves are also riding a momentum swing of their own, riding a four-game win streak.

The Seawolves have fought injuries all season long after being picked to finish second behind the Terriers in the AE preseason coaches’ poll, and although the Terriers can boast a 2-0 record against Stony Brook this season, they will be playing a much healthier team on Saturday.

“It’s going to be a great challenge,” Chambers said “I think we’re on level ground right now. Throw away the records. Records don’t matter anymore. They were going through a lot, trying to piece things together when [junior forward Tommy] Brenton went down and [senior guard] Chris Martin went down. They were mixing and matching, playing a lot of freshmen.”

In their first meeting on Jan. 20, both teams were still finding their way through injuries and growing pains, but the Terriers overcame 15 points from junior forward Dallis Joyner to come away with the 67-62 win.

The second contest between the two marked a turning point for BU’s season as the team captured its first road win of their streak, 62-49. Not only did it remove pressure from a team that had gone 1-9 on the road prior to the game, but it propelled the Terriers to a season-ending 4-0 road record and prepared them to win in Hartford last weekend.

Still, the Seawolves that played on Feb. 4 were hardly the team that they are now.

Senior guard Chris Martin, SBU’s captain and only senior, was playing in just his third game back from an injury and managed just two points in 10 minutes on the court. In the first two rounds of the tournament, however, Martin racked up 32 points on 10-of-19 shooting. Clearly, he is healthy and ready to play.

“He is a tough son of a gun,” Chambers said of Martin. “I talked to him before the game and I could see that he was still hurt and maybe not in the best shape. But we’re starting to see Chris Martin again. Honestly, his leadership [is important]. Chris Martin has that personality to really push and drive. He was the difference last weekend. No doubt about it.”

Junior and sophomore guards Bryan Dougher and Leonard Hayes also bring unique scoring abilities to the table for SBU. Dougher leads the team in points per game with 12.8 with the ability to catch fire from behind the arc on any given night, and Hayes has also found his touch from behind the arc of late, scoring a game-high 20 points including six 3-pointers in the Seawolves’ most recent game against UVM.

Senior forward John Holland, who will be playing in his final AE game on Saturday, has had Stony Brook’s number all season long, scoring 46 points through two games against them on 11-of-28 shooting while grabbing 14 rebounds.

Freshman forward Dom Morris will most likely join freshman guard D.J. Irving in the starting lineup. While the Terriers’ freshmen corps has displayed an admirable ability to play within themselves despite nerve-wracking situations, they will have to remain poised for 40 minutes on Saturday if they hope to dance in the NCAA Tournament.

Hazel acknowledged just how difficult it has been for the Terriers to keep their composure all season long.

“There’s a lot of hype around everything: the championship game, it’s at our gym…I know that for these young guys, it’s their first go-around. I’m pretty sure they’re all excited and they’ve got the jitters…As long as we just keep up the same preparation and continue to build and know that we aren’t there yet, then I feel like we’ll be all right.”