Second-half surge pushes Terriers to AE final

Well, here we are at the beginning of March, when the American sports audience turns its gaze to college basketball. And just like last year, our very own men’s basketball team is one win away from joining the big dance.

Late Sunday night when most of you were most likely finishing up those last-minute cramming sessions for midterms, this Terrier squad snuck past a tenacious Hartford University team, 55-49, and guess what? Despite all the injuries and doubts and probing questions, Boston University is back in the America East championship game to reclaim its title as the cream of the America East crop.

And boy, have they been unstoppable. Nothing says storming into the AE championship game like a 10-game winning streak, which covered victories against every conference opponent, including impressive games against University of Vermont, University of Maine, and more recently in the tournament itself, Universit of New Hampshire and Hartford. Talk about saving their best for last. And it has all culminated in one final game against Stony Brook University, a team the Terriers defeated rather convincingly earlier in the season.

Looking back at all the preseason predictions, it should hardly be a surprise that our men’s basketball team is exactly where everyone picked them to be at season’s end, competing to win their conference and gain a spot among the 64 elite teams in the NCAA Tournament.

They were assuredly chosen by preseason voters to win their conference, but who would’ve known how much of a struggle that quest would become? Injuries decimated the squad’s growth for most of the season, and the role of leadership on the team was questioned because of how many untested underclassmen experienced significant playing time.

But it seems as though this team has finally overcome all of those obstacles and found its groove.

It says a lot about a team’s heart to recover from hurt players and to turn on the jets during the second half of the season. It’s simply amazing to see how well they’ve fared since the start of 2011. They’re 13-4 since Jan. 15, the Saturday before BU started school for the spring semester. Just for a little perspective, the team was 7-10 during the fall semester, even though some of those losses came against much tougher teams, including games against Harvard University and then-No. 6 Villanova University.

It’s hard to pinpoint the reason for the team’s subpar beginning and subsequent outstanding finish, but I’m almost positive I can identify the source of the team’s newfound energy.
On Jan. 31, just two weeks into this semester, BU coach Patrick Chambers announced that junior forwad Jake O’Brien, a captain and team leader in rebounds, would miss the remainder of the season with a foot injury.

It was devastating to a team that had struggled all year to gain its footing in their conference, but some (including me) doubted if they could recover from losing a team leader and still have the man-power to get to March Madness.

But the Terriers rallied behind their fallen teammate, went 10-0 in February, and now they have the chance to win their first conference championship since 2002.

I don’t know what happened or how these guys became motivated enough to suddenly be one game away from winning their conference, but you have no idea how glad I am to see this team finally put the pieces together and pull out some meaningful wins.

Maybe they needed a wakeup call like O’Brien’s injury to give them a jolt of endurance. Maybe they were always motivated, but never had the confidence to translate that drive into winning games. Maybe they just needed rest after a stressful stretch of games in the fall, where at one point, they lost four games in a row.

Who knows? All I care about is seeing them compete on Saturday in a championship game, which, by the way, is being held in the lovely confines of our very own Agganis Arena.
How are our chances, you ask? Well, BU will be facing a team that they’ve already beaten twice this year, once by five and the next time by 13. Stony Brook is 15-16 overall and 8-8 in the AE, but don’t for a second think that they’re our conference’s version of the New Jersey Nets.

They’re finishing up an impressive streak themselves, winning five in a row going into Saturday’s showdown. In the AE semifinals, they steamrolled Vermont by 22 points, a surprising margin of victory considering that Vermont was the No. 1 team in AE for the latter part of the season. Stony Brook is a very, very dangerous team, and they cannot be overlooked.

But in the meantime, we can commend our boys on a very impressive year, and just hope for the best in Saturday’s game. So thanks guys for an exciting, memorable season, for giving us a championship game, and above all else, for never giving up.  Good luck and go Terriers!