For many BU sports fans, the fall 2009 semester felt like a powerful hangover that just wouldn’t go away.’ Most of us are relieved to see finals and the winter break approaching to bring an end to the unexpected disappointment of the last few months.
After all the drama of the men’s hockey tournament run last season culminating in the national championship, we waited for them to work out their kinks and recapture that chemistry. Maybe we expected some rough patches and we knew that the team lost too much to just continue sailing along. But ultimately, they were supposed to keep getting better throughout the year and end up on top of the Hockey East, battling for another spot in the Frozen Four.
Instead, the team is approaching the halfway point of its season, and it still has problems that can’t be solved by a lot of orange juice and a couple of Advil. BU faced a critical test against Vermont and BC this weekend that gave them a chance to propel themselves from the cellar of the conference and prove that they are still among the Hockey East elite.
Instead, they came away with just one point and did not show the aggressiveness and desire they need to get out of themselves out of the corner they’ve backed into with their poor early-season play.
This is not, as I mistakenly wrote before the season started, a young team that’s just taking a while to figure out their new roles. They are simply, ‘not a hungry team,’ as BU coach Jack Parker said when he verbally ripped his team apart after Friday’s tie against Vermont.
Parker’s tongue-lashing showed that he has clearly had it with his team’s apathy. BU is getting into the part the schedule where it will begin facing opponents for the second time, and Parker has shown that he will not hesitate to shake things up if we see more of the same.
The hockey team is the main gauge of fans’ mood around campus, and therefore the main reason for student frustration right now. But, it was actually a relatively successful season overall if we instead judge the performance of ALL the Terrier sports teams this fall.
The women’s field hockey and women’s soccer teams both won the America East tournament and earned a berth in the NCAAs. The men’s basketball team has gotten through injuries and an incredibly difficult early schedule to position itself nicely for a run at the conference title they were unanimously picked to win. And unlike men’s hockey, the women’s basketball team seems to be rebuilding very effectively after losing a lot of talent.
The success of the other programs has been basically ignored in the face of the hockey team’s struggles, which brings up the question: Do any of these teams have a chance one day at recognition on campus? Or is BU destined to simply remain a hockey school and nothing more?
Between 5,000 and 6,300 fans come to Agganis Arena for every hockey game, yet when the BU basketball team beat Bucknell on Sunday afternoon at Agganis, only about 1,200 people watched. The sea of red and white jerseys was replaced by row after row of empty red seats. The women’s basketball team has drawn just more than 500 people to its two home games COMBINED this season.
Unfortunately, it will take a lot more than wins to change the athletic culture on campus. The BU teams that are struggling to bring out fans did not just suddenly start winning this season. The women’s soccer team made its third straight NCAA Tournament appearance this year. The women’s basketball team went undefeated in its conference regular season schedule last season.
Despite the wins, the fact remains that the competition the teams play in the America East such as Stony Brook or Vermont doesn’t interest casual fans like the hockey teams’ yearly matchup with BC does. Worse, Nickerson Field and Case Gymnasium are dated and ordinary-looking venues that do not have the same ability to attract fans that Agganis does.
That doesn’t mean that continued success won’t boost attendance numbers. Many women’s basketball programs in the rest of the America East draw over 1,000 fans per game. But the drawbacks of facing weak competition at old facilities will hamper many BU programs from drawing the crowd they might expect their success to bring.
Men’s basketball is the one team at BU that has not won much recently, and therefore may be able to draw significantly larger crowds if it’s successful. New head coach Pat Chambers has made a point to try to get students fired up about the team. His plan seems to be to draw recruits by touting Agganis Arena and the large crowd it can hold as an advantage BU holds over everyone else in the America East. Of course, for this to work, more students need to come out to Agganis, and for more students to come the team needs to win. Sunday’s crowd serves as a reminder that the process of filling ‘The Greek’ will not happen overnight.
Still, there are positive signs for the team. A capable group of freshmen and transfers will replace seniors Corey Lowe, Carlos Strong and Tyler Morris next season. The team won’t be any less talented and shouldn’t miss a beat. But that may be looking a little too far into the future. After all, we said the same things about the hockey team at the beginning of this year.
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