BURLINGTON, Vt. &- As Corey Lowe backpedaled down the Patrick Gymnasium floor, sticking out his tongue for all to see after drilling an NBA range 3-pointer from the left wing, déjà vu struck the senior guard.
“We’ve been here before,” he told himself.
Hadn’t the Boston University men’s basketball team erased a second-half deficit in its upset victory over Stony Brook University six days earlier? Hadn’t the Terriers won eight of their past nine contests? Hadn’t BU remained within striking distance through 30 minutes of Saturday’s America East championship game against the University of Vermont?
Yes, yes and yes. But on this afternoon, those factors hardly mattered.
Maybe the Catamounts, buoyed by their raucous home crowd, simply played harder. Maybe the Terriers, who failed to convert three alley-oop attempts, were just out of sync. Or maybe, at the worst possible time, BU’s improbable journey to the NCAA Tournament became precisely that &- improbable.
“It was one of those days,” BU coach Patrick Chambers said.
One of those days when his team trailed 42-31 at the intermission following a 34.8 percent first-half shooting performance. One of those days when Catamounts senior forward and two-time America East Player of the Year Marqus Blakely sliced up the Terriers for 24 points and 18 rebounds. One of those days when BU’s 15-4 second-half run, capped by Lowe’s deep trey at 10:20, pulled it within a point (54-53), only for Vermont to rip off a 7-0 spurt that squelched the visitors’ comeback.
One of those days, indeed.
“We tried to build off our momentum and I thought we were going to do it again, just like the Stony Brook game. We just couldn’t get over the hump,” said Lowe, who averaged 24.7 points per game during the America East Tournament.
“This time, it didn’t turn out in our favor.”
The Catamounts turned Saturday’s bout in their favor by shooting 57.8 percent from the field, while the Terriers (38.2 percent) never settled into a sustained offensive groove.
“Our shots weren’t falling like they had been over the past month,” Chambers said. “Unfortunately, they just didn’t go in today.”
Junior forward John Holland epitomized BU’s woes, finishing with nine points to conclude a conference tournament in which the league’s regular-season scoring champion averaged a pedestrian 10.3 points per contest.
But Holland wasn’t alone in his struggles Saturday. And for that reason, the Terriers &- America East preseason favorites for a third straight year &- failed to secure their first NCAA bid since 2002.
“It’s a collective effort,” said sophomore forward Jake O’Brien, named to the all-tournament team along with Lowe. “We don’t rely on any one individual.”
Regardless of how BU fares in the College Basketball Invitational, starting Wednesday night with a first-round matchup at Oregon State University, 2009-10 has marked a campaign of progress for the recently maligned program.
The journey began with Chambers’ hiring last April, continued Saturday in BU’s first conference final since 2003, and will end later this month as the Terriers make their first postseason appearance in five years.
“We just have to look at the whole experience, all the things we’ve been through and how we stuck together,” Lowe said. “Overall, this was a great year for us. We had never made it this far, so we can take a lot of positives out of it.”
Sitting alongside Lowe and O’Brien at Saturday’s postgame press conference, Chambers expressed gratitude to his players for helping him author an admirable season.
“I give them a lot of credit,” Chambers said. “They willed us here and made my job a lot easier. I’m very appreciative of these guys for getting us to this point. I want to thank them, first and foremost.”
