Corey Hassan was living the dream. He was a star on a team that sorely needed one, a spark on a club that so desperately needed to ignite. He was the rare freshman that demanded instant attention, and genuinely seemed to deserve it. After all, he blew life into Case Gymnasium and gave BU basketball fans the one thing they wanted more than anything: hope.
But somewhere along the way, something went wrong.
And now, after a bizarre series of events that played out over the past eight months, that something can no longer be fixed. Hassan is gone, fleeing BU for the shady recesses of Sacred Heart University in Connecticut-leaving a string of what-ifs and could-have-beens in his wake.
“Nothing against BU, but everyone’s different, and I just wasn’t made for the city,” Hassan said. “I was just miserable there. I knew that I couldn’t stay for a few more years.”
But not everything leading up to his August release is quite so clear. The saga began in February, when Hassan first approached coach Dennis Wolff and told him that he was unhappy at BU. The city simply didn’t mesh with the New Hampshire native’s small-town lifestyle, and he wanted a change of scenery.
“I tried to make myself like it but it never happened,” Hassan said. “As time went on I just stayed in my room. I was just miserable. I didn’t want to do anything. I just wanted to go home.”
Wolff advised him to stick it out until the heat of the season subsided, and gave Hassan three weeks after March’s conference tournament to make up his mind for good. If he wanted to stay, the team would be thrilled. If he wanted to go, he would get his release. Simple enough. But that’s where things got fuzzy.
Hassan came back and decided to stick it out, opting to stay with a program that allowed him to start all 28 of the team’s games as a rookie-and that seemed to be the end of it.
“He said he wanted to stay and he was sure he wanted to stay,” Wolff said. “It was not that he would try and see how he liked it. It was none of that. It was ‘I don’t know what I was thinking.’ And then for three months there was zero indication that he was anything but happy.”
Until midway through the second of two academic summer sessions, when Hassan dropped a bombshell on his team. He had changed his mind, and wanted out. Only now, the stakes had changed.
Wolff was no longer so generous in granting his request. Hassan had spent two summer sessions on scholarship in an anticipated fall return, and now, with the prime recruiting season long since ended, the team would be down a scholarship player just by letting him go.
Hassan, though, wasn’t going to be convinced.
“[Wolff] just said that I put him in a tough spot,” Hassan said. “When I first said it, I didn’t think he’d release me at all. I told him even if he didn’t release me I wouldn’t want to go back to BU.”
Wolff’s hands were tied, and under the guideline that Hassan wouldn’t be allowed to transfer to a rival school within the America East, the two sides tried to pound out an agreement.
Hassan first came to Wolff with a list of over 100 schools to which he wanted his release granted, and Wolff nixed around 10 of them right off the bat-most notably, Boston College, Providence College, UMass-Amherst, Rhode Island, and St. Bonaventure.
The guard then returned the volley with a request for a release to five other schools, and when Wolff said no, he appealed to an administrative committee highlighted by Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore. The committee sided with the Terriers, crippling Hassan’s efforts to find a new home.
It was under those new, more stringent guidelines that Wolff granted Hassan his conditional release, and the rising sophomore began talking to schools. Winthrop was interested, as was Bucknell, Arizona State, High Point University and a slew of Division-2 schools. But after quickly shopping around, Hassan settled on Sacred Heart, a 5,600-student college nestled away in Fairfield, Connecticut.
And so far, he believes it’s the right choice.
“I’ve been here for three days now,” Hassan said. “I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but I absolutely love it.”
But that doesn’t wash away the sour taste left in the mouths of many at BU. While Hassan believes that he agreed to stay back in March under the caveat that he would merely give the city a second chance, Wolff contends that the freshman came to him having clearly changed his mind.
“I told them I was going to give it another chance, but I was still miserable,” Hassan said. “I just feel like life’s too short.”
Wolff saw things differently.
“In the spring if it was just, ‘I don’t like Boston and I want to be at a smaller school,’ I would’ve given him his release,” the coach said. “I’m not going to make somebody stay. The idea that there was any pressure is laughable.”
Regardless, a rift had formed-and one that was entirely off the court. Hassan had every reason to revel in a season that was a sharpshooter’s dream, and that culminated in a spot on the America East all-freshmen team. The guard was given plenty of liberty as a shooter as well, launching 280 field goal attempts-second-most on the team, and 75 more than fellow first-year players Ben Coblyn, Ibrahim Konate, Brendan Sullivan and Marques Johnson combined.
By the end of the year, Hassan’s minutes were increasing as well, resulting in a robust 11.9 points per game for a team that scored less than 60 a contest as a whole. And Hassan was given free reign from beyond the arc, launching 194 three-pointers and hitting on 67, third-most in Terrier history.
But something outside the gym didn’t click. And coupled with the apparent misunderstanding surrounding his release, Hassan said what was once a strong relationship has quickly soured-and that Wolff’s refusal to give him an unconditional release was little more than spite.
“During the season, off the court we were going great,” Hassan said. “When I told him after the season he got mad at me and after I told him I was going to leave he didn’t really talk to me at all. I still like him. I hope he still likes me. I’m not going to hate him because he gave me a conditional release.”
Wolff, though, cites different reasons, attributing what Hassan perceived as anger to the murkiness surrounding his departure.
“I think not granting his release, it wasn’t anger,” Wolff said. “It was doubting large portions of his story. It’s very difficult for anyone here to put their finger on exactly what happened, because I don’t think he’s been entirely truthful with everyone with regards to the reasons. One minute it’s the campus, one minute it’s I’m too intense as a coach, one minute it’s the assistant coaches pressured him to stay.
“Angry? No not angry. Put out is what I said in the fact that there was no regard for our program, his teammates, the coaches, a lot of people who spent a lot of time trying to get him acclimated. It was just all about him and what he wanted at that moment.”
What he wanted was to get out. And it all happened so quickly that Wolff was far from the only one surprised.
“When he told me in the summertime I was shocked,” said Johnson, Hassan’s roommate over the past year. “I didn’t even know he was unhappy until he told me. It kind of caught me off guard.”
These days around BU basketball, however, it’s hard to be surprised. Hassan’s release is just the latest in a long line of recent departures, beginning with forward Etienne Brower’s defection to UMass-Amherst following the 2004-2005 season. This past spring, sophomores Tony Gaffney and Bryan Geffen followed suit, along with freshman Brendan Sullivan.
But those situations don’t seem to parallel that of Hassan. While Gaffney and Sullivan had notable off-court problems-both being suspended at various points last year-Hassan never had any reported problems with either the coach or the team, and his on-court record was nothing but exemplary.
“This isn’t the right place to be if you’re not going to go to class, or if you’re not going to try hard in practice, or if you’re going to party every night,” Wolff said. “He had none of those issues at all. We are sorry to see him leave …… but we’re comfortable with what we have.”
Instead, it was something far away from basketball that triggered the turn of events-something that no one other than Hassan may ever know for sure. But now the reasons are in the past, and the team must look forward to a new season with its golden child no longer sitting on his throne.
“I don’t know at the end of the day,” Wolff said. “But we have ten freshmen and sophomores and we got five new guys, so we’re moving forward.
And Hassan, too, is moving on.
“I was given a ton of opportunities that most freshmen aren’t given and I knew that I’d be throwing that away for a situation that wasn’t guaranteed,” Hassan said. “But I just kind of came to the realization that basketball isn’t everything. I’d rather be happy.”