This is the first of a two-part series revisiting the BU men’s basketball season.
When the Boston University men’s basketball team walked out of Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh in March, 2002, after falling hard to top-seeded University of Cincinnati, the question remained whether the Terriers would be able to hang with one of the national basketball powerhouses anytime in the near future.
Stanford. Florida State. Arizona. St. John’s.
Does that answer the question?
The Terriers started the season on the west coast, ended it on the east and impressed everyone in between. And while a 1-3 record in those games might not seem too impressive, consider the seasons each of those opponents put up. Two made the NCAA Tournament (Stanford as a No. 4 seed, Arizona as a No. 1), one beat Duke in February (Florida State), and the other won its record sixth NIT (St. John’s).
‘I don’t think we’re going to play quite as hard a schedule next year,’ said BU Coach Dennis Wolff. ‘But I think you have to try to play a good schedule if you want to have a program like we’re trying to have. This year we were able to beat Florida State, we had opportunities to beat Stanford, and played with Arizona. So I think the team has matured a little bit in being able to handle that stuff.’
When the Terriers opened the season on national television inside historic Maples Pavilion at Stanford, it was obviously going to be a different kind of year. And when BU fell just short in a last-minute surge, losing by four to the Cardinal, Terrier Nation knew something was brewing.
But surprisingly, it was another game that defined the Terriers’ season.
Not the last-second loss to the University of Vermont in the America East title game. Not the hard-nosed and gritty win over Northeastern in the conference semifinals. And not the overtime win over the University of Hartford just days after a devastating loss at Stony Brook University.
That defining win came almost exactly halfway through the conference schedule at the ‘Frozen Tundra’ of Alfond Arena in Orono, Maine. And it didn’t start off too well. BU found itself down 10-0 before it could even blink, fighting back to find itself down by eight at the half. But the Terriers bounced back in the second, hitting seven threes to outscore the Black Bears 44-26 on their way to a 10-point win.
The win was important in more ways than one. The Terriers were coming off their first conference loss of the year, a 72-69 loss to Northeastern in front of a raucous Case Gym crowd. But perhaps more importantly, they proved that they could overcome a slow start and come back — something they would need a month and a half later when Vermont jumped out to a 16-2 lead in the America East Championship.
‘I think that that was one of the games where you can kind of see where we were at,’ Wolff said of the win in Orono. ‘We had just lost, we’re down at halftime, it was freezing in there, it could’ve been very easy to pack it in and they didn’t.’
Wolff acknowledged that his locker-room speech at halftime was something a little less than polite.
‘I’m sure these guys have other ways of phrasing how I am, but I’m demanding as a coach,’ Wolff said. ‘And when we have situations like at Maine, I’m not going in there at halftime telling them everything’s OK. They have, across the board, 99 percent of the time, responded in those situations. Maybe we’ve not responded to the point where we’re able to come back and win like we did that night.’
Prior to the three-point loss to Northeastern, the Terriers had been cruising in the America East. They were 6-0 in the league, and had won eight of their previous 10 games, including a dominating win over Florida State and a 40-minute fight with No. 4 Arizona in front of 14,000 screaming Wildcat fans.
The 15-point win over Florida State came as redemption for the Terriers, who had been trounced in their three previous games against power-conference opponents, losing by a combined 44 points to Boston College, St. Joseph’s and George Washington University. Not only did the win provide Wolff and crew with a victory over an ACC opponent, but it gave them a shot at what was widely considered the best team in the land: Arizona.
BU jumped out to a 15-14 lead in the first half, and nipped at the Wildcats’ heels all night long. A three by junior guard Matt Turner cut the Arizona lead to 66-61 with just under 10 minutes to play, before the ‘Cats pulled away for the 14-point win.
Senior guard Billy Collins proved why he was named to the Fiesta Bowl Classic All-Tournament Team, scoring 13 points to go along with 15 in the win over the Seminoles.
Just a few days later, against a slightly lesser known opponent in the University at Albany, sophomore forward Rashad Bell had his coming out party, tying a career-high with 21 points while going a perfect 13-for-13 from the free throw line in the 66-63 BU win.
‘I think that obviously Rashad made a big jump,’ Wolff said of his flamboyant budding star, who finished the season averaging 12 points and just over five assists. ‘But I’m very conscious of not being very complimentary to Rashad. Rashad made a big jump and proved to be one of the better players in the league. But I’m saying that hoping that I’m not going to enlarge his head further.’
While the win over Florida State and the games against Arizona and Stanford were flashy on the resume, it was the America East Tournament where the success or failure of the season would be decided. And just like the No. 1 seed – and host – should do, the Terriers fought through the University of New Hampshire and Northeastern to find themselves hosting the conference championship game for the second-straight year. While the win over New Hampshire was a runaway after a slow start, the victory over the Huskies was a little more hard-fought, adding on to what looks to be an interesting and reborn rivalry.
And while the Terriers were able to fight back from that early deficit against Vermont in the title game, it was a leaning jumper by Catamount guard David Hehn and a missed fadeaway by BU guard Chaz Carr that sent the Terriers to the NIT instead of the NCAAs.
‘I don’t know if there’s one time I could say that pops right into the front of my thought process in regard to being proud of the team,’ Wolff said. ‘I have been consistently proud of these guys over the last two and a half years. So I was proud of them for the effort at Stanford. I was proud for them for the win over Florida State. And I was equally proud of them for fighting back the way we did against Vermont, even though we came up a little short.
‘If at the same time you can be a little bit disappointed that, while by everyone’s estimation, we had a good season; we were a few plays away from having a great season,’ Wolff added.
The loss to Vermont, and a newfound fondness for strong mid-major programs from the NIT selection committee, sent the Terriers to Jamaica, N.Y. for a matchup with St. John’s, and former BU head coach Mike Jarvis.
Despite a game-high 18 points from Bell and 11 boards from Collins, the Terriers missed some clutch free throws down the stretch, falling 63-57 to the eventual NIT champ. The loss was eerily similar to the 61-57 loss in Palo Alto that opened the season, and yet another game that the Terriers could have won, if not for a few unfortunate mistakes.
‘A couple plays in the Stanford game, one play in the Vermont game, a couple plays in the St. John’s game,’ Wolff said, noting those few plays that turned the tide of the season. ‘They [St. John’s] won the NIT, and I know I’m crazy, but that was certainly a winnable game for us. The only thing we can do is take from it and look forward to next year and say we just got to be just a little more efficient and make more plays.’
After two straight seasons with post-season appearances – a program first – the Terriers have seen what it takes to become a nationally recognized program. Wolff will undoubtedly have a few more powerhouses on the schedule next season, as BU looks to make another NCAA run.
Despite the bitter taste of watching Vermont celebrate an NCAA Tournament berth on their own home court, the Terriers have much to be proud of when they look back at their 2002-2003 campaign.
But the most impressive part of the BU men’s basketball program is a question.
What’s next?