NEW YORK — It’s not you, BU men’s basketball. It’s me.

I’m sorry, but I just don’t have feelings for you anymore, as much as I wish that weren’t true. I’d give anything to find the old spark again, but it’s gone — perhaps for good — and to go on pretending wouldn’t be fair to either of us.

This isn’t some rash decision — no, I’ve been thinking about it for some time now. And it pains me to say this, but I think we both need to move on.

Sure, we had some great times together, many of which I’ll never forget. There was that afternoon at Agganis Arena back in 2005, when you beat the University of Vermont — Taylor Coppenrath and all — in the first game that made me proud to be a BU basketball fan. The new arena was overflowing with scarlet, the fans were standing and screaming and the atmosphere rivaled anything I had previously seen at BU. Pity I haven’t experienced anything like it since.

I had hope for that season’s opening-round NIT game against Georgetown University, too. Even though I was still smarting from the fact that you had lost in the first round of the America East Tournament, I was also proud that you had played well enough to earn a postseason berth anyway. Just one of many, I thought. And I knew you could compete with Georgetown — at least I thought you could, until you scored only 34 points and embarrassed me in front of all my friends.

I was mad then, but I got over it. I always gave you second chances — perhaps more of them than you deserved.

So that’s why there was no surprise a year later, when things really started to get serious between us. We spent the weekend together in Binghamton — or at least we planned to – before you lost in the first round of the 2006 conference tournament to a Vermont team we both know you should have beaten. I had booked a hotel room with a big cozy bed, never thinking you might instead spend that night on a bus back to Boston.

I guess at times like these it’s easy to think back to the beginning, back when everything seemed so perfect. It felt as if we would be together forever, as if nothing could stand between us. Maybe I was naive in my youth, or maybe I was just a little too hopeful. But with all the success you had before I arrived at BU, I didn’t think one little NCAA Tournament berth during my years in Boston was too much to ask.

Apparently, it was.

Even so, I had you on my mind when I moved to New York last year, when I still thought we could make this whole long-distance relationship work. But ever since the move, everything has been a strain. I’m sure you’ve noticed it, too.

I’ve done my best to follow the men’s hockey team since moving here, and, as poorly as they’re playing, my allegiance to them hasn’t wavered. Loyalty to the Ice Dogs, for better or for worse, is ingrained in every BU student, and that goes for alumni as well. Not so with basketball. Though I rooted as best I could during my time on campus — I would have traded a nationally-ranked hockey team for a nationally-ranked basketball team in a second — I was the exception, not the rule. And now I realize nothing could have changed that.

Now I see why the Athletics Department bigwigs glaze over when students demand a football team back on campus. Few care about their Terriers until they’re gone.

I care. Or cared, rather. But those days are over.

There’s another reason for this confession, one that’s not easy for me to say. Last week I went to a bar, had a few too many drinks and, well, I began rooting for another team. And I enjoyed it. Loved every second of it. Lost in the ecstasy of high fives and fist pumps, I put on another team’s colors and it was everything I wished and hoped college basketball could be.

Don’t get me wrong, BU basketball, I’ll always hold a special spot in my heart for you. What we had was sacred, and I’m not trying to cheapen it. It was as real as fandom can get. But now it’s over.

I’m not blaming coach Dennis Wolff or Director of Athletics Mike Lynch or anyone else at BU — and you shouldn’t, either. This isn’t their fault. It’s something bigger that has been keeping students away from the games, something firmly ingrained in the Comm. Ave. culture.

I’m done fighting it, whatever it is. I tried, I lost and I’m moving on. I took your picture off my nightstand and deleted your number from my phone.

Perhaps you should do the same.

Anthony DiComo, a 2007 graduate of the College of Communication, is a former writer and associate editor for The Daily Free Press.