It’s been a season of firsts for the Boston University men’s basketball team, which is odd, considering the amount of experience the veteran squad has accumulated over the years. Still, prior to this season, the Terriers had never dealt with the loss of two pivotal players midway through the season, they never had the opportunity to control their own destiny (regarding the America East regular-season championship) in mid-February, they never recorded a winning regular season and they never beat a team with an RPI above 100 (Northeastern, 93).
Good, bad or indifferent, this group of Terriers has encountered a breadth of unusual circumstances, and the final two games on their regular-season schedule will be no different. With the third seed in the America East Tournament (which begins March 6 in Albany, N.Y.) locked up, BU is faced with the opportunity to semi-relax given they know their seeding.
Coupled with the fact that their final two games are against the two worst teams in the conference – the University of Maine on Thursday and the University of Hartford on Sunday – the Terriers (15-12, 9-5 AE) have a good chance to enter the tournament on a winning streak for the first time since 2006.
Thursday’s contest against the Black Bears (9-18, 4-10) – a team the Terriers beat by 11 after trailing by 18 in the first half earlier this year – provides, more than anything else, an opportunity for BU to fine-tune. That prospect could prove beneficial in the long run as the pressure the Terriers faced against Vermont and Binghamton has long subsided, and the sole focus of the team can now shift to playing better basketball.
‘I still think we need to be more efficient offensively,’ BU coach Dennis Wolff said when asked what the team needs to do better. ‘We can’t be feeding the ball inside as much as we do and have something positive come out of it every other time.’
Rookie forward Jeff Pelage – who is playing the best basketball of his young career – and junior forward Scott Brittain – who struggled mightily against Iona College last Saturday – will both get an opportunity to impress Wolff with their offense in the teams’ final two regular-season games.
One Terrier for whom the final two contests are crucial is junior guard Corey Lowe. With the news that Lowe will play Thursday after spraining his right ankle five days prior, it will be interesting to see not only how he recovers from his poor play of late, but also from the injury he sustained against Binghamton two weeks ago and reaggravated against Iona.
The team’s starting point guard and second leading scorer (16.6 points per game) has served as a microcosm of BU’s play all season. When the Terriers were executing at their best – during an eight-game winning streak – Lowe was dazzling onlookers with high-scoring games coupled with a brilliant command of the facilitator’s role.
When the Terriers played their worst – a five-game stretch that began in mid-December and a three-game slide last week – Lowe did the same. For just the second time in his career, Lowe has gone three-consecutive games without reaching double digits in scoring. He did so three separate times last season.
‘We still want to try and play the best basketball we’re capable of,’ Wolff said. ‘If we end up winning two more games, I know it’s not the ideal season that we all hoped for, but considering everything that happened, I’m not sure that 17-12 and 11-5 is that bad.’
Game Notes: With a win on Thursday, the Terriers would notch their 1,000th victory in program history in this, their 100th season of basketball. ‘hellip; Sophomore forward John Holland has 490 points on the season. With 10 more, he would become just the second player under Wolff to record 500 in one season. The other is Tunji Awojobi, who did so twice. ‘hellip; The status of freshman forward Jake O’Brien, who turned his ankle in practice Tuesday, is currently unknown.
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