Boston University men’s basketball coach Dennis Wolff confirmed the release of sophomore forward Ben Coblyn yesterday.
Coblyn’s departure is the fifth and most recent installment in the men’s basketball saga that has seen one player after another leave the Terriers. First it was Tony Gaffney, Bryan Geffen and Brendan Sullivan in March and then Corey Hassan at the end of the summer.
Tuesday, Coblyn, the 6-foot-8 forward from Amherst, asked Wolff for his official release from the team only nine days before the Terriers were scheduled to begin their 2006-07 season.
“I think what’s going on is that for some reason we’re experiencing a little epidemic of, whether it was recruiting mistakes on our part, or whether you think it’s lack of commitment on some of those guys parts, who knows,” Wolff said.
The current “epidemic” becomes even more complicated when you consider the fact that every former Terrier has left or been released for a different reason. Coblyn is no exception.
“I’m leaving the team because I think that playing basketball right now and being at BU isn’t the best thing for me in my life at this point,” he said. “It’s just not something I want to do anymore. I have no more passion or excitement to play basketball.”
Coblyn went on to explain that his decision to leave was in no way affected by the departure of the four players before him.
More than any reason Coblyn could give, it’s the timing of his decision that shocked Wolff.
“The bothersome thing to me about this is being caught by surprise,” Wolff said. “The timing of it-prior to the beginning of the season and the easy way it was done and walked away from with coaches, teammates and everything else, is disappointing. Our statement is what I’ll adhere to – we were surprised and disappointed, but if he feels it’s the best thing for him, we wish him luck wherever he goes.”
Coblyn, on the other hand, saw the timing of his decision as beneficial to BU.
“I wasn’t having any fun playing basketball any more, so it made no sense to get into the season and play a few games with the team,” he said. “I thought it would be detrimental to the team and it would hurt my teammates in the long run if I waited any longer to announce my decision.”
Prior to his decision the leave, Coblyn’s college basketball career had already traversed a somewhat rocky road. After red-shirting at the beginning of the 2004-05 season because of a lower back injury, he dropped in the depth chart. After recovering, however, Coblyn returned to play in 23 games last season (eight starts) and averaged 5.3 points per game.
After an offseason in which Coblyn showed no lack of interest in the team or the sport, it was expected that he’d see a significant increase in playing time after averaging only 16.2 minutes per game last year. So much so, that the BU athletics department chose him to be one of the faces of BU basketball. He was pictured on billboards, he was on the cover of the media guide and you could open up your BU pocket schedule and see No. 10 patrolling the right-hand margin.
So why would Coblyn choose to quit the Terriers? Because, according to Coblyn, his decision to leave had very little to do with playing time.
“It was a really hard process for me and it took a long time to discuss with my parents,” Coblyn said. “When it came down to it wasn’t how much playing time I was going to get, it was just that the pros of leaving outweighed the pros of staying.”
However, at this point, those pros are still undefined by Cobyln.
“Hopefully I’ll get my release by the end of the week and go from there,” he said. “I really don’t have any interests yet and I can’t contact any other schools until I get my release. All I know is that I’m not happy here and I don’t want to stay here. I’ll never play college basketball again.”
One would be hard-pressed to see how that rationale outweighs competing as a key player on the BU team. At this point, the magnifying glass has to shift to within the organization, simply because having five players leave under such circumstances is not an everyday occurrence.
“I think that the dilemma I find myself in is that there has to be some accountability for the way these kids are going to behave and there has to be some commitment to try to be a good player,” Wolff said. “There’s got to be commitment to trying to get your education and at the same time trying to enjoy college life at BU.
“At the end of the day, I don’t shirk any responsibility for what I’m responsible for-the basketball program,” he continued. “I’m not, and shouldn’t, be immune to criticism by anyone, as long as it’s thought out, fair and each situation is looked at correctly.”
Wolff thinks that each situation-the exits of Gaffney, Geffen, Sullivan, Hassan and now Coblyn-has to be looked at differently.
“When I scrutinize every situation and look at them individually, I think that there were clearly reasons why it wasn’t working in every situation,” he said. “In analyzing it, I don’t know how me or my staff could have handled any of these situations any differently.
“Recruiting is not an exact science,” he continued. “In some of the instances, the guys are certainly talented enough to play here, but maybe we misjudged a guy or two. Sometimes that’s going to happen.”
Whether or not Coblyn was just another “bad apple” recruit, or he truly lost a passion for playing the game, he was one of the few veteran players whom BU needed to set an example for the younger kids.
“I honestly hope my decision doesn’t get to them, but I’m not sure,” Coblyn said. “I was one of the older guys on the team, so I guess the younger guys on the team were looking at me for leadership, but I just don’t know how they’ll be affected by this.
“If I could address the team, I’d say I’m sorry and that the guys on the team know that I care about them, know who they are and I hope that we can stay friends,” he added. “All I can say is I’m sorry and I hope that they still have a successful season.”
Nevertheless, five heartfelt apologies won’t offset the extreme loss of experience they’ll have to overcome this season. The team has only two seniors, and with the loss of Coblyn will feature more new faces than old when it tips off its season against George Washington on Nov. 10.
“I think it’s been kind of a convergence of a coach’s worst nightmare thing, in a short period of time,” Wolff said. “I’ve had one other little stretch where we had some of this and we put our nose to the grindstone and worked our way out of it. I’m very confident that we can do the same.
“I’m disappointed for [senior co-captains] Omari [Peterkin] and Brian [Macon],” he continued. “Because for a very enthusiastic, wanting to learn, good group of freshmen and sophomores, we’re starting the year off discussing a negative. Unfortunately, you can never control the timing of these kinds of issues.”