It wasn’t supposed to end like this.
When I get home from the Hockey East semifinals Friday night, I’ll turn on my television and find Rick Pitino on the sidelines, watching his red-and-white-clad team run circles around its first round opponent in the NCAA Tournament.
But Pitino doesn’t coach the Terriers. Not anymore, anyway.
I can handle that much. After all, the Louisville coach hasn’t stood on the Terriers’ sideline for more than 20 years. He’s moved on, won a national championship and coached in the NBA. Rick Pitino in the NCAA Tournament isn’t what bugs me.
No, my problem is that our beloved Terriers aren’t. And it makes me sick to my stomach.
The Terriers were the hottest team in the conference heading into the America East Tournament. Although drawing Albany in the first round appeared troublesome, the prospect of a second-round meeting against a Hartford team BU had recently wiped the floor with seemed to promise a finals appearance.
Until that fateful Sunday, everything went according to plan. Albany bowed out in overtime to conclude a thrilling set of quarterfinal contests, and Hartford struggled mightily with a weak New Hampshire team before advancing to the semifinals. I could practically taste the finals.
Of course, I had overlooked Hartford’s secret weapon: Warren McLendon. He hadn’t played in the Feb. 28 regular season game at The Roof, and BU had no idea how to neutralize him in the paint. Omari Peterkin was not walking through that door.
Thirteen points, 10 rebounds and five blocks later, the Terriers were canceling their plans for a weekend trip to Baltimore, their dreams of an NCAA tournament berth rudely interrupted. My bracket was busted before I ever filled one out.
Backtrack to the end of January, and the pain inflicted by a semifinal loss doesn’t make sense. The Terriers were 3-5 in conference and held wins against no one of consequence. John Holland’s brilliance had only been hinted at. The team seemed unsure of itself on the court. In the final game of the month, Corey Lowe didn’t even know if he would be playing, and wore a spare No. 14 jersey in Orono when he felt healthy enough to compete. Who could have known the Terriers would win eight of their last 10 games before entering the conference tournament?
When one of your favorite teams is struggling day in and day out, failure is more tolerable. I’m experiencing this first-hand – I’m a Knicks fan. While I don’t appreciate Isiah Thomas and James Dolan systematically running the franchise into the ground, I can handle defeat much better than I did when the Knicks were title contenders during the ’90s.
In that context, the abrupt end to the Terriers’ season isn’t just painful, it’s borderline unbearable. BU wasn’t an awful team heading into the tournament. It wasn’t a mediocre team that had flatlined. The Terriers were a red-hot, highly dangerous team. They had perimeter scorers, players who could get to the rim, make a nice pass while driving or just shoot over defenders. BU’s defense? Suffocating. Even the rebounding had improved in recent weeks. BU was peaking at the perfect time. Losing against Hartford felt like falling off a cliff.
And besides, rooting for the Terriers isn’t like being a Duke or UCLA fan. There’s a connection between low-major programs and their small-conference crowds that can’t be replicated in Cameron Indoor. When the Terriers win a close game, that joy isn’t shared with hundreds of thousands of other people, simply because there aren’t hundreds of thousands of people who particularly care about BU basketball. For the few people who really follow the Terriers closely, the ecstasy of victory and agony of defeat become that much more vivid.
Regardless of what Terrier hockey does this weekend and beyond, the end of this year’s basketball season will bother me until next November. Don’t get me wrong – I love the hockey team and genuinely enjoy going to the games, but I’m a basketball fan first and a hockey fan second. Reggie Miller made me cry more as a kid than Ray Bourque or the Flyers’ Legion of Doom line ever did.
It’s going to be eight long months of waiting and hoping. Hoping nobody transfers, hoping Marqus Blakely doesn’t learn how to shoot free throws and hoping the Terriers’ next season ends on national television against a major-conference school.
The Terriers aren’t going to win a national championship. I’d be surprised if they ever pose a serious threat to win one. But the goal for a small-conference team is almost never ‘Let’s win the big one.’ It’s ‘Let’s go dancing.’
I just wish the music didn’t have to stop.
Matt Whitrock, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. He can be reached at [email protected].
