Seven months of speculation and prognostication come to a head Friday night when the Boston University men’s basketball team, under new head coach Patrick Chambers, takes on Iona College in its season opener in New Rochelle, N.Y.
Despite hopes of a new era in BU basketball after Chambers’ hiring in April, things have soured for the Terriers come November. Both senior Scott Brittain and freshman B.J. Bailey are out Friday with concussions, Brittain may not be back until the start of America East play in January, Chambers said.
On top of that, senior Corey Lowe has a tender right foot, an injury that will not sideline him for the opener but is still cause for concern.
All this creates a unique challenge for Chambers, who has preached that he wants his players to ‘play until exhaustion’ and give everything they have for as long as they are in the game.
‘It’s good new, bad news,’ Chambers said. ‘Good news is I preach, ‘Play until exhaustion.’ That might be three minutes and then I have to get a substitution in. But now I can’t do that.
‘Now, if they’re going to play to exhaustion, I might have to call a timeout. I’m put in a situation where maybe I can’t wait for a media timeout. I’ve got guys grabbing their shorts, holding their knees. They’re just spent.’
On the bright side for Chambers, this will also be a good indicator of how his team will handle pressure situations and which players he can count on to play through adversity.
With two starters out, Chambers will have to rely on players who have not logged many minutes in the past. Expect to see sophomore Jeff Pelage and senior Valdas Sirutis take over for Brittain, and senior Sherrod Smith for Bailey at the guard spot.
‘Nobody feels sorry for us. Nobody cares about our injuries. Nobody cares about our sicknesses,’ Chambers said at a press conference last week. ‘We’ve just got to come out, know that, play as hard as we can and let the chips fall. I’ll tell you what, if we play hard for 40 minutes, I have a good feeling that we’ll win a lot of these games.’
Recent history is also against the Terriers heading into their matchup Friday. Since 2004, BU is 1-4 in season openers, including a 63-58 overtime loss to George Washington University last season.
There is good news for the Terriers ‘-‘- seniors Carlos Strong and Tyler Morris have returned to 100 percent after suffering season-ending injuries last year. BU will need leadership from both if it wants to beat Iona.
Despite the Gaels’ recent struggles ‘-‘- last season, Iona went 12-19 and dropped five straight losses at the end of the year ‘-‘- Chambers is not taking them lightly.
‘It’s not the same team from last year,’ Chambers said. ‘They want to play us. They’re a relatively new team and it’s their home opener.’
By ‘new,’ Chambers means that the Gaels have six freshman and just two seniors on a 14-man roster. Iona was picked to finish ninth out of 10 teams in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.
Iona returns sophomore Scott Machado, just one of their three top scorers in 2008-09. Even as one of the Gaels offensive leaders, Machado averaged just 9.3 points per game.
The Gaels’ size will be the most significant challenge for the Terriers ‘-‘- senior forward/center Jonathan Huffman is a 7-footer, and freshman Chris Pelcher is 6-foot-10. Both will see significant minutes on Friday.
That said, Chambers has plenty to worry about in his first game with the Terriers. Heading into his first game as head coach, Chambers said he is just trying to turn his anxiousness into energy for the matchup.
‘I think you’re always going to be nervous,’ Chambers said. ‘As a player, I was nervous, even as an assistant coach my nerves we’re always running a little high. It all depends on how you use it. Because [that nervousness] is all just extra energy. I’ve always used it as a positive.’
‘
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
