MEYER: What remains to be seen

In sports, like in many other walks of life, perceptions change on something of a day-by-day basis, especially in our current media landscape of 24-hour sports networks and the like.

Teams and players go on unbelievable streaks of success only to follow them with unbearable and downright unwatchable lows. It affects us as fans, as the squad or person we were praising a few days ago, we now find ourselves booing mere moments later (see Donovan McNabb and Eagles fans ‘-‘- then again that mostly involves booing).

Here at BU, it’s really not that different, although you don’t tend to come across too many people whose emotional state shifts with the fates of the various Terrier athletic teams.

With finals week and the end of the first semester fast approaching, we’re about to enter a break from school and for some of us, a brief break from being able to watch or sometimes even keep up with different BU teams.

Amidst the madness and frantic pace of Christmas and New Year’s, this upcoming month will have a lot of bearing on how the respective seasons of many Terrier teams could go and how we view them, with the players and fans being presented with a lot of unanswered questions that may not remain that way by the time that we get back to campus in mid-January.

Naturally, at BU, the discussion begins with the men’s hockey team. It almost goes without saying that the Terriers have failed to live up to the hype and excitement generated from the national championship run last April, along with not being able to justify their preseason No. 3 national rank. Currently sitting at 4-8-3 on the year and sitting on the steps looking up from the cellar of Hockey East, the Terriers are coming off a weekend in which they escaped with a tie against Vermont, and then the ultimate back-breaker: a 4-1 home loss to BC on Saturday night, a game that was tied at one going into the final period.

Over the break, the Terriers begin a pretty tough slate of games, facing off against Rensselaer on Friday, followed by a Jan. 2 game against UMass at home and the hotly-anticipated Jan. 8 game against BC at Fenway Park. Sure, this is just a three-game stretch, but with games against teams that have already taken down the Terriers this year, we should learn a considerable amount about how this team can respond to adversity.

BU men’s basketball is not immune to these same challenges. Plagued by injuries and inconsistent play throughout these first nine games, the Terriers have gotten through what is easily the hardest part of their season, and limped out with a 3-6 record.

With things seemingly getting back on track for now, BU faces a schedule that certainly doesn’t feature the likes of UConn, Kansas State or Georgia Tech, but one that could allow us to properly gauge the potential for this team and what it can accomplish this season. The Terriers should be favored in their next two contests against Marist and Mount St. Mary’s before concluding the non-conference schedule with a game at preseason Atlantic-10 favorite Dayton.

Then comes what truly matters for this team: conference play. Being a low-major school, the only way that a program like BU can get into the NCAA Tournament is through America East, something that prompted Coach Chambers to schedule such a challenging non-conference slate of games.

The story of the 2009-10 season will ultimately be written through their in-conference play, and with four conference contests slated before the end of winter break, we’ll have an idea of just how good this team is before second semester classes even start.

I also won’t make the mistake of ignoring the women’s teams here either, with both women’s hockey and women’s basketball continuing play into the New Year.

With the well-documented struggles of a few teams here on campus of recent, women’s hockey has emerged as a top-10 team in the national polls, and with only two games on the schedule in the next month, expect them to remain that way.

It’s been discussed and debated as to whether this year is indeed a rebuilding year for women’s basketball, and the first seven games for this team have been highlighted by flashes of brilliance, but has also exposed some serious flaws that many of us expected to be showcased this year. The team will travel to Philly a few days after Christmas for the Hawk Classic at St. Joseph’s University, and then like the men, conference play gets underway.

For now, the team’s still something of a work in progress, so this may in fact be the team that we learn the most about in what should be a very jam-packed and intriguing break for BU Athletics.