Terriers try to forget the past

When asked if last season’s one-point loss to the University of Vermont in the America East Championship has had a lasting effect on the Boston University men’s basketball team, coach Dennis Wolff was quick to respond, acknowledging how much his team wanted that game but harping on the need to learn from the defeat and move on.

‘To get to that championship game, that’s the ultimate goal,’ Wolff said last week. ‘Obviously, we’d like to get a couple more points further than we did last year. The success we’ve had the last two years was earned and I don’t think it’s an automatic, so I appreciated what happened to us and I’ve tried to get into the kids’ minds that we’ve just got to pound away at it every day to try to give ourselves a chance to get back there.’

Clearly, Wolff’s message to the 2003-04 Terriers will be that nothing will come easy, as they have established themselves as a team to beat in the conference. BU opens it season tomorrow having played in two straight championship games, tasting both victory and defeat and looking to once again enjoy the former. While several of the key cogs of the teams that advanced to the NCAA Tournament and the National Invitational Tournament in consecutive seasons remain, Wolff said this year’s edition, like every other, will develop its own personality.

‘One of the thoughts I always have is that each season brings almost a whole new life it’s like a team being born all over again,’ said Wolff, who begins his 10th year pacing the BU sideline. ‘While we have a lot of guys back and while we have talent, we have to see how the whole thing’s going to grow. If we can get it to grow in the right direction, then I think these guys have enough talent that we can be as good as we’ve been in the last couple years.’

Many of BU’s key returning players have been with the team the last couple of years, giving the Terriers the experience they need to make it to a third consecutive championship game. Wolff will look to his four co-captains, senior guards Kevin Fitzgerald and Matt Turner and senior forwards Ryan Butt and Jason Grochowalski, for leadership on and off the floor, while junior forward Rashad Bell and junior guard Chaz Carr will also be expected to take on more team responsibilities.

‘I’d like to have the senior class close out on an up-note collectively, and I’d like them all to have their best years individually,’ Wolff said. ‘I think, within the team goals, guys can utilize their individualize goals.’

With graduation of Billy Collins and Paul Seymour, two players who shaped the gutsy personality of last year’s team, Wolff said he is most concerned with how this year’s squad will respond defensively. Collins and Seymour were both aggressive defenders who rebounded well, so players like Bell, Grochowalski and Butt will have to play a little bigger than they did last season.

While defense is one of Wolff’s biggest concerns, the coach should not have to worry about the offense. The Terriers will feature a balanced scoring attack as they have in previous seasons, with several players who have the ability to, on any given night, score 20 to 25 points. Bell, Turner, Carr and Grochowalski have all proven they can score in bunches and give BU several options on offense.

A lot of the talk about the America East this season has centered around defending-champion Vermont, with returning stars Taylor Coppenrath and T.J. Sorrentine, and upstart Northeastern University, led by super-soph Jose Juan Barea. With much of the attention on those two teams, the Terriers could be the team everyone forgets about until then end of the season, when they remind people they were a point away from back-to-back NCAA appearances.

‘I think we have as good a chance as anyone,’ Wolff said. ‘I think Vermont and Northeastern have very good teams. It’s a situation where a lot of it will come down to how we play head-to-head against them and who stays healthy.’

In talking to Wolff, there is a genuine sense that this Terrier team has the talent and the experience to rebound from last season’s disappointing ending.

‘We didn’t dwell on [the loss],’ Wolff said. ‘I thought we got terrific effort out of our kids. We didn’t pay well. We got in a hole. We could have caved in, but we didn’t. I just tried to talk to talk to them about getting ourselves back to have another chance. These kids have worked extremely hard. I can’t fault their effort.’

But be sure, even if the Terriers have moved on from last season’s championship game loss, they’ll show Vermont that they remember what it felt like when the Catamounts return to Case Gymnasium on Jan. 17.