Be the Ball

For centuries, farmers have used a method called slash-and-burn to plant crops in small patches of heavily forested areas. A farmer will cut down all the trees and plants in a given parcel of land, allow the vegetation to dry, then set fire to the remaining foliage. While this may seem like a destructive act, burning the land actually infuses the soil with rich nutrients and provides the farmer a fertile area to grow his crops.

Why in God’s name am I telling you about an ancient farming technique?

Think of the fire as Duke University. Think of the land as the Boston University men’s basketball team. Stay with me here.

Without sounding like a certain perennially pessimistic Boston Globe columnist, I think it’s safe to say the No. 1 Blue Devils will have no problem beating the Terriers when they open the preseason National Invitational Tournament against each other on Nov. 14.

But maybe that would be a good thing. Like fire to the land, losing big to Duke will allow the young Terrier to team to grow. But that doesn’t mean that the Terriers are just going to lie down.

“We’re preparing like it’s any other game – we’re preparing to win, even if it’s against the number one team in the nation,” said BU coach Dennis Wolff.

Opening the season against the best team in the country has its benefits. Namely, it will expose any and all of the Terriers’ flaws and give them time to work out the kinks. The Terriers are carrying an extremely young roster – nearly half the players are freshmen and only two seniors are returning, captains Shaun Wynn and Kevin Gardner. More than winning or losing, the greatest thing the Terriers can gain from playing Duke is experience against a tough opponent.

“We’ve got to use [the game] as a learning experience,” Wolff said. BU doesn’t play another game until a week later (Nov. 22 against the University of Michigan at Agganis Arena), so the Terriers have a sizeable window to apply what they learned and improve.

The Terriers lost last year’s top three scorers – Rashad Bell (15.6 points per game), Chaz Carr (13.1 ppg) to graduation and Etienne Brower (8.3 ppg) to UMass-Amherst. Though it appears that Wynn (6.2 ppg) and Gardner (7.3 ppg) will have to carry the bulk of the scoring load, Wolff said the offense will “have to be a team effort, more than any one guy.”

That said, the Terriers must – I repeat, must – have at least two, if not three players capable of averaging in double digits to win the America East and return to the NCAA Tournament, which they have not done since 2002.

You can count on Duke testing the Terriers’ defense, which last season was ranked No. 1 in the NCAA in opponents’ field goal percentage (37.1 percent, and yes, that’s No. 1 in the nation) and points allowed (55.7 ppg). Duke sharpshooter J.J. Redick and center Shelden Williams will give the Terriers fits, but more importantly, they will force BU to adapt to a high-powered offense.

Though they lost Bell, their best defender last year, the Terriers still have Wynn, a former America East Defensive Player of the Year. And Wolff, whose teams have always been known for their strong defensive play, will scheme and devise ways to get it done on the defensive end.

Perhaps the most invaluable thing the Terriers can take away from playing the nation’s top team is that from Nov. 14 until the end of the season – no matter how bad things might get – they can always look back on this game and say, “We’ve been through worse.”

They will not play a tougher opponent all season. Not even close.

And if the Terriers are to come together as a team and learn how to score and maintain their reputation as a physical, smash-mouth defense, it starts at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Monday.

But hey, BU could always end up beating Duke, making everything I’ve just said null and void. And if that happens, maybe I should give up my writing gig and become a farmer.