The words sounded like music to Patrick Chambers’ ears.
“Our team just loves each other,” senior guard Tyler Morris told reporters at Monday night’s postgame press conference. “That’s it. Bottom line. Flat-out.”
“It took me all year to get my players to say that,” Chambers said with a smile. “It finally came out in the media, which is fine with me.”
Yes, the members of the Boston University men’s basketball team care for one another quite a bit. And they aren’t ready to end their season just yet.
With three more victories, the Terriers will conclude the 2009-10 campaign as champions of the College Basketball Invitational.
Forty-eight hours after knocking off Morehead State University in a 91-89 overtime thriller at Case Gymnasium, BU (21-13) opposes Virginia Commonwealth University (24-9) on Wednesday night in a 7 p.m. semifinal matchup at Verizon Wireless Arena in Richmond, Va.
The manner in which the Terriers reached the CBI Final Four embodied their season.
Minus senior guard Corey Lowe, released from the team earlier this week after expressing a desire to move on with his basketball career, BU had the look of a distracted group as it began Monday’s contest.
Morehead State scored the game’s first eight points, led by a 20-9 margin 10:46 into the first half, and appeared poised to halt BU’s season in an unceremonious fashion.
The Eagles soon learned that instead of wilting under pressure, the Terriers embrace it with open arms.
“We’re a fighting team,” senior guard Carlos Strong said. “We respond well to challenges.”
Those challenges include a season of injuries, inconsistency, and most recently, the abrupt departure of the de facto face of the program for the past four years.
“These guys are so resilient, no matter what adversity strikes them,” said Chambers, whose squad sports a 10-2 record since Feb. 1. “Early on in the year, I think we might have folded up the tent. But in January, it started to change. In February, it definitely changed.
“I’m so proud of this team. These players deserve all the credit, because they brought us here. They put us in this position to keep playing. That’s what it’s about.”
What it’s about for the Terriers is authoring a strong finish to their season, even if that ending comes in the CBI following an unsuccessful NCAA Tournament bid.
“Obviously, this means something to us,” said Morris, who played a career-high 45 minutes in Monday’s win. “It really doesn’t matter to us what other people think, because we’re a family. When we got the opportunity to play in this tournament, every single guy wanted to take that opportunity.”
“We just love playing together, that feeling when you’re warming up and getting ready to go to war with some of your closest friends,” Strong said. “There isn’t a better feeling than playing the game you love, with people you love.”
For Morris, Strong and the rest of BU’s seniors, the CBI represents the final taste of that feeling, one Chambers knows they’ll likely never experience again.
“When my career was over, I would have given anything to play one more game, because I didn’t have anywhere else to play after that,” Chambers said. “Most of these kids probably don’t either. So why not cherish this? Why not make this tournament our tournament? Now, we’re in the Final Four of our tournament, which is awesome.
“It’s something these kids will remember forever.”
News &’ notes: The Terriers are the first team in America East history to win two games in a postseason tournament. … Junior forward John Holland sits two points shy of setting the program’s single-season record, held by 1997 graduate Tunji Awojobi (658). … Virginia Commonwealth boasts a trio of double-digit scoring threats in junior forward Larry Sanders (14.4 points per game), junior guard Joey Rodriguez (12.5) and sophomore guard Bradford Burgess (10.4). … VCU dropped a 73-69 overtime decision to Old Dominion University in the semifinal round of the Colonial Athletic Association Tournament earlier this month. … BU is 1-1 all-time against VCU. The teams last played in 1978. … Monday marked the Terriers’ largest comeback victory of the season, as they had not previously overcome a deficit of more than 10 points.
