Forgive me if I put down my Terrier pom-poms. Midnight Madness was Saturday. Depending on the type of person you are, you might have viewed Case Gymnasium as half-full. I prefer half-empty. All the marketing that went into the event, including that one poster at the George Sherman Union, filled up only half the gym at one of the largest schools in the country. That includes the pep band taking up an entire section of bleachers.
On top of that, the event was advertised to start at roughly 11 p.m. Unfortunately, that hour might have been better spent trying to locate Vanilla Ice’s career. The Dear Abbeys, a phenomenally talented a capella group, helped open up the event, and no one listened. They were not supposed to be background music. The first hour consisted of random disorganized events that went nowhere. I didn’t even get a free T-shirt.
The fans who did attend were rowdy and excited. They’re the ones that surround the team with a palpable buzz. Hopefully, Midnight Madness becomes an annual event for BU that gets marketed better in the future.
Whatever fans there are of the Boston University men’s basketball team are already anointing the team America East champs without a single ball being dribbled. Many publications, including Sporting News and USA Today, are already touting the Terriers as the team to beat in America East. USA Today even referred to last year’s freshmen as, “one of the best freshman classes in the history of the America East, and next year they’ll be looking to put their stamp on the league by representing it in the NCAA Tournament.”
But let’s take a collective step back and look at what transpired that season.
This team was not very good last year. America East can be, at best, described as a conference that does not get the same respect that the Big East, ACC or the Big 10 does. In other words, the conference is charitably mediocre. Every year, the America East Tournament becomes a battle of who will win the fight to get crushed in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Albany was the winner of the prize after last year’s conference tournament and proceeded to get slaughtered 84-57 by the University of Virginia in the first round. In a nutshell, the conference champion can max out as a No.13 seed in the big tournament, which usually helps no one, save for a once in a lifetime win such as the Vermont Catamounts upsetting Syracuse in 2005.
The Terriers began last year 3-10 and were finally able to turn their season around by beating up on sub-par conference opponents such as Maine, Binghamton and UMBC. During the initial rough start to the season, the Terriers lost to teams such as Rider and Northeastern. Throughout the non-conference slate, BU faced two teams that were considered average in the NCAA tournament field, George Washington and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Both resulted in losses at Agganis Arena. GW made the NCAA tournament last year and UMass hit the NIT.
If Ohio State and Florida are the barometer for the elite college teams, where do UMass and GW fall? After answering that question, think to yourself: Where does BU fall?
When a team manages an overall record of 12-18 and 8-8 in conference in a sub-par conference, what about that is more than mediocre?
The Terriers were a combined 0-5 against Vermont and Albany, the two teams ahead of them in the America East standings. When a team can only get wins by beating up on bad opponents and loses to the only two serious contenders in a below-average conference five times, that spells mediocrity.
I’m not going to say that the team isn’t going to be better this year. It might, but I’d like to wait and see results that back up the hype first. The Terriers are certainly young and talented. But let us not forget, this is the same cast of characters that brought the team to a sub-.500 mark last season. This is also a team which had a significant hole in the frontcourt and lost Omari Peterkin, its one semblance of a post presence, to graduation.
BU shot nearly seven 3-pointers a game and only 42% from the field. It averaged a miserable assist-to-turnover ratio of 0.8. Guard Corey Lowe had 69 assists to 89 turnovers on the season. At the end of the day, BU was average at rebounding and could not take care of the ball. The Terriers were sixth in the conference in rebounding at 32 per game, ahead of only UMBC, UNH and Hartford.
Why is it guaranteed that the team will dramatically improve this year? The biggest excuse fans tend to use to explain last year is the team’s overall youth. The idea now is that a season of experience will automatically improve it. This may or may not be true: Look at NBA players such as Nate Robinson and Michael Olowakandi, who have spent years playing in the league without any sort of improvement. Experience does not necessarily improve one’s game.
Will a season of playing together improve on-court chemistry? Possibly, but talent ultimately wins ballgames. We will find out this year if the Terriers have enough talent to win. It is entirely possible that the team’s record last year went beyond youth. There was also the matter of players being forced into roles they were not prepared for. Ibrahim Konate was not even supposed to see significant playing time, let alone start 11 games.
Let’s say the team does improve. What’s the ceiling for the Terriers? After playing sub-.500 ball in their first season of playing together, will the next three years bring a sudden transformation into America East contenders? That’s a dramatic change, and I’m admittedly skeptical. Terrier fans need to resign themselves to the possibility that this season may be a gradual improvement and not an overnight success.
After all, as the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in an offseason.
Sopan Deb, a sophomore in the College of Communication, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. He can be reached at [email protected].
