I’ve never been a big fan of hype. When everyone makes you out to be something you aren’t, what’s the point in trying? You’re only being set up for failure. And even if you somehow find a way to fulfill these improbable expectations, where is there to go once you hit the top?

I once saw a Boston College football poster this year titled “BELIEVE THE HYPE.” If going from national championship contenders to beating a 7-6 team in a worthless bowl game is their idea of hype, then I never want to see BU in any preseason rankings ever again.

With all the preseason talk about the men’s basketball team, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a similar poster on Comm. Ave. featuring coach Dennis Wolff’s bald head in place of BC’s bald-headed eagle.

The Class of 2010 was expected to carry the Terriers into the Big Dance. Ever since Corey Lowe, Scott Brittain and Carlos Strong joined redshirt sophomore Tyler Morris at BU, it’s been nothing more than a waiting game for basketball fans on campus.

Before the season started, fans and critics alike expected the 2007-08 season to be the first of many successful campaigns led by BU’s super sophomores. The Terriers were picked to finish first in the conference — a feat that no player on the current roster has ever experienced.

But I’m starting to think the members of the basketball team don’t care too much for hype either.

BU played itself out of contention in the first half of the season, so much so that it was almost painful to watch the once-5-14 Terriers get routed nightly. It would have been hard to pay fans to sit in the seats of Case Gymnasium over the last few months to witness a Terrier team that simply couldn’t put the pieces together to a win game.

By the time everyone started to look forward to next season, BU pulled a fast one when it realized that winning is actually a good thing. I don’t know where they got that idea, but it was probably from a very influential halftime speech by Valdas Sirutis.

The Terriers seemed to wait until the last possible second to tend to their wounded season. After two double-digit losses to UMBC and the University of Vermont, BU looked as though it just didn’t have what it took to play with the top teams in the conference. But after the season appeared lost, the Terriers have found their touch, winning seven of their last eight games.

To this day, I can’t figure out what inspired the Terriers to finally turn it around. After following the program very closely, I have seen a few very odd things that might have contributed to their resurgence.

Perhaps Wolff was too occupied with yelling at referees to figure out why BU couldn’t get it together, but I admire such an approach: make the referees fear you until they start calling things your way. Perhaps John Holland became afraid that the vein on Wolff’s forehead might explode if he got any angrier, which led to Holland winning four consecutive Rookie of the Week awards because he feared for Wolff’s physical health.

The prodigious talents of “Flute Guy” – the multi-instrument playing band member the student section has come to love – has magically turned the basketball team into an overnight powerhouse at The Roof. The Terriers have not lost since the glorious day Flute Guy climbed up to his perch and his legend was born.

Now the Terriers are putting together blowout wins. Brittain knows backups need love too, so he tries extra hard every night to give the reserves their time in the sun once the Terriers pull away. Feb. 12 will forever be remembered as “Tunday,” as fan-favorite Tunde Agboola scored his first career points in the waning minutes of BU’s dominant victory over Binghamton.

The image of a Terrier squad struggling to play with low-rate Atlantic-10 teams has been completely erased from my mind. The typical mentality that BU doesn’t play exciting basketball from our wonderful fans has been single-handedly changed by the dynamic dunks of Holland.

And on top of it all, they’re winning games.

Sometimes teams just need a reality check. The hype is over, and the regular season is coming to a close. It is hard to have any expectations for this team because you never know what they’re going to do next. Sitting at 12-15 on the year, the Terriers are peaking at just the right time.

Whether the rest of the conference wants to “believe the hype” is another issue.

Ross Lichtenberg, a sophomore in Sargent College, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. He can be reached at [email protected].