Before every men’s basketball game this past season, three young men in suits stand under the basket while the team runs its layup line. Their names are Matt Griffin, Darryl Partin and Patrick Hazel. No, they are not coach Patrick Chambers’ assistants, even though their season of sitting on the bench has taught them many things about the game. They were the first three players Chambers invited to Boston University when he became head basketball coach. Men who had experience playing college basketball, but felt that they could find a better fit.
They are the type of players Chambers wants playing for him&-men who have great attitude, hustle and devotion to their team. While the coaching staff and players are confident about these transfer players, most student fans know little about them.
Each of the transfers was in some form of contact with Chambers during his first year of college basketball. This contact helped to bring them to BU. Griffin played his freshman year at Rider but grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, not far from Villanova University, where Chambers was an assistant coach.
Hazel dealt with multiple factors in his decision to transfer to BU.
“Coming from Marquette [University], I had to deal with a coaching change,” Hazel said. “Things didn’t work out when the coaches changed. Coach Orlando [Vandross] was recruiting me out of high school, and it was just a perfect situation because [Chambers] coached at Villanova and I played against Villanova too.”
Partin also had contact with Chambers through playing at La Salle University. Both La Salle and Villanova are members of the Big 5, the unofficial fraternity of Philadelphia college basketball teams. Partin also brought up the importance of timing when one considers transferring. “Sophomore year is sort of a make or break year,” Partin said. “You don’t want to stay around and transfer after your junior year with one year left to play.”
NCAA rules state that players who transfer must not participate in games during their first season at their new school. Although each of the three would have preferred to play this year, they all said they were grateful for the opportunity to see the game played from a different viewpoint.
“It was certainly different sitting on the bench, you just got a different perspective of everything,” Griffin said. “Even though as a player you want to be out there, you take that opportunity and take advantage of it. You see the system that coach Chambers wants to run, and how he wants things done. I think will pay off for us in the long run.”
Hazel added that sitting out a year also helped each of them improve as players and brought them together as a family.
“You get to work on your weaknesses, get a lot stronger and better, get worked into the system,” Hazel said. “We’ll be ahead of a lot of guys that are going to be in the system next year. We can teach them, help them out. We’re leaders behind closed doors. It sucks to transfer in by yourself, and have to sit out by yourself. So we had all three of us together, staying back and hanging out.”
When Chambers became the head coach a little more than a year ago, one of the first things he said was that he wished to install a style of basketball that people at BU would be proud of. Fans over the past season have become accustomed to seeing selfless players with great attitudes, strong effort and hustle take the court every night. Partin spoke for his fellow transfers when asked how he, Griffin and Hazel would fit into Chambers’ style of play.
“Just playing hard, playing smart, playing together, playing with pride &- like Coach Chambers says, BU basketball, that’s what we were about coming in,” Partin said. “Once we get the opportunity to do it now and practice, you have a year to build on it, it is right on. We are ready to go.”
Although the three could not play during the season, they were still members of BU basketball family. As a result they became close with everyone else on the team, including the nine graduating seniors.
“We were very fortunate to have nine seniors who made the locker room atmosphere great,” Griffin said. “We all wanted to be around each other because of them and obviously they had a great year and we have big shoes to fill. But we can take from them their work ethic and how hard they played, the way that they stuck together through tough times.”
Fans throughout the season have been most curious about Hazel, due to the fact that he played a season at Marquette, a quality Big East contender. Little do fans know that Hazel was the winner of Coach Chambers’ Attitude Club.
“The Attitude Club is keeping the stats like rebounds, assists, steals, but some of the others like deflections, dives, charges,” Hazel said. “Some of the things that don’t show up on the stat sheet and are a recipe for winning, and a winning attitude. Attitude is just what we all believe in, like the [attitude] triangle over there, playing hard, playing smart, playing together. It is like a competition between us, and us competing like that just makes the whole team better.”
BU basketball had one of its most successful seasons in the past few years, winning its first tournament game since 1959. Going into the upcoming season, expectations will be just as high due to its recent success. The three transfers, however, are not letting those expectations distract them.
“Our coach says a lot that the team from last year and the nine seniors laid down a foundation and we are just building,” Hazel said. “We don’t try to set expectations. We just try to make sure we’re coming out with the same drive, just trying to get better each day at a time.”
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