The top team in the America East is coming into town tonight, and its bringing busloads of fans with it.
When the first-place University of Vermont (21-6, 13-1 America East) rolls into Senior Night at Case Gymnasium, the Catamounts and their fans will see a vastly different Terrier squad than the one they saw in the Land of Green Mountains.
After all, the way things went during the teams’ last contest, the Boston University men’s basketball team might as well have been playing against the mountains themselves.
On Feb. 5 in Patrick Gymnasium, the Terriers (11-15, 8-6) went small ball – they had to, without key starters – and came closer to winning than the 72-63 final score indicates. BU was without its two leading rebounders, 6-foot-9 senior forward Omari Peterkin (6.6 per game), who sprained an ankle two days earlier against the University of Hartford, and 6-foot-9 freshman Scott Brittain (5.5 rpg) was serving a one-game suspension for his part in a scuffle against the Hawks.
With his starting big men out, BU coach Dennis Wolff went with a four-guard lineup of Brian Macon, Tyler Morris, Carlos Strong and forward Ibrahim Konate. The speedsters produced on offense, with Lowe (18 points), Morris (19), and Strong (14), all putting up double digits. The problem for the Terriers was in the paint.
“Defensively, I think there’s some things we need to try to do to give ourselves a chance,” Wolff said. “But primarily we need to rebound the ball. We don’t rebound then we’ll have no chance.”
Those chances are almost always better at home (BU’s 6-1 in conference play at The Roof this season), but Vermont will reportedly be shipping 300-400 fans to the BU campus in an effort to minimize any home-court advantage the Terrier’s would enjoy. In 11 home games this season, the Terriers have played in front of an average of 1,233 fans. In their 14 contests on the road, opponents have seated 2,703 fans on average.
“What Vermont’s fans do, that’s nothing to me,” Wolff said. “In the past when we’ve had a bigger game like this and we’ve had a buzz surrounding the game, then we’ve had a better turnout. I don’t think there’s a question that a good turnout and feeling the energy that the home crowd gives you helps the home team. I’d like to have 500-600 BU students – that’d be nice.”
Without Brittain and Peterkin in their last matchup, the Catamounts beat the Terriers on the boards, 41-23, including a 21-7 advantage on the offensive glass, with Vermont center Chris Holm pulling down a career-high 16 boards. This time, Peterkin will be matching Holm down low, but it will be a group effort that makes the difference.
“I think that matchup – it’s got to be a team rebounding thing” Wolff said. “They have better overall team size than we have, and we have better overall quickness than they have. I think the chess match of the thing is both sides try to take advantage of what their strengths are. If I had to [say] one thing at the end of the year that I think has lost us four or five games, it’s defensive rebounding.”
Despite the size disadvantage even with standout Vermont freshman Joe Trapani out of the lineup that game (13.4 ppg, 5.0 rpg), the Terriers took a 33-28 lead going into the break. The Catamounts came alive in the second, using an early 15-1 run to take the lead until the final buzzer, despite a late BU run that brought the game within seven.
“I couldn’t be any prouder than the effort these kids put forward tonight,” Wolff said after the defeat. “I’m very, very, proud of them and what they tried to do.”
But this game should be different no matter what kind of fun-house mirror it is reflected in.
“I don’t think you can look at that game as any barometer of this,” Wolff said. “I think it’s a situation where our short-handedness in that game and our playing small in that game also hurt them. They couldn’t prepare and you’ve got to be fair to them. Now both teams are at full strength and you get to prepare normally.”
While the night will be dedicated to honoring senior co-captains Macon and Peterkin, it will be their last chance to shine at The Roof. And as the Terriers witnessed firsthand last Sunday, when the University of Maryland-Baltimore County’s senior Mike Housman dropped 20 points – Senior Night can be a potent thing.
“In 13 years I’ve been through quite a few of these now and I always have mixed emotions,” Wolff said. “At the same time, you want them to play well and try to keep them from being too emotionally vested in it to where they can’t play well. I actually think the kid from UMBC the other day, Mike Housman, played a good game and he kept his emotions under control and he channeled his energy in the right way. My hope is that Omari and Brian can do that as well.”
A win would mean a third-place tournament berth for the Terriers. With three teams at 6-8, only Hartford has a chance to overtake BU with back-to-back wins and two Terrier losses. But BU can find that ever-elusive consistency at the tail end of the season, there’s a good chance seeding will be a non-issue.
“I think the challenge for this team right now is we’ve played well in large portions of every one of these games, but we haven’t played well long enough to win some that were winnable,” Wolff said. “One of the most important things is being able to — right through the meat of the game — still be standing at the end, and when you’re at the end when both teams have worked real hard and their fatigued and all that, that we’re going to make enough fundamentally [sound] plays to win.”