Letters to the Editor: Support BU basketball

I couldn’t help but laugh at Majid Ikhwan’s bafflingly uninformed letter to the editor last Thursday (“BU men’s basketball needs to get better,” page 6, Nov. 10). I wonder if he has ever been to a Boston University basketball game. Because if he had, he would have seen one of the most successful programs in the nation over the last four years, having won 20 games and made it to postseason tournaments every year. Beating Michigan in consecutive years apparently doesn’t mean as much as it used to. To Mr. Ikhwan, if a team doesn’t appear on ESPN every night, then the team sucks. This presumption about BU’s expectations from year to year versus what they deliver is insulting to both the players and the coaches. Sadly though, I’m afraid a large portion of BU’s student body has this mindset about our men’s basketball team.

For Mr. Ikhwan’s information, BU had nothing to do with the scheduling of the Duke University game (the game is part of a preseason tournament, and the games are scheduled by an independent committee). But had Coach Wolff the opportunity to schedule this game himself, he would have done so in a heartbeat. You get better by playing the best. And contrary to Mr. Ikhwan’s assertion, this game will be tremendous exposure for potential BU recruits, since there are thousands of high school players who dream of playing Duke on national television. For our current players, this was one of the most exciting games of their careers, 17-point loss or not.

Finally, Mr. Ikhwan writes “BU men’s basketball, of course, has never exactly been the pride of the school.” For ourselves and a lot of other folks in the BU community, this team happens to be a source of great pride in our school. Perhaps if Mr. Ikhwan had spent less time caring about what the Cincinnati campus newspaper says and more time following his school’s basketball team, he would realize there is a lot to be proud of.

Give ’em hell this year, Terriers.

Chip Weiskotten, CAS ’03 Joe Weiskotten, COM ’06