Welcome back, all you anxious Terriers! I hope your spring break was as inactive and mind-numbing as mine was, filled with plenty of nights staying up until 5 a.m. and sleeping until 1 p.m. And hopefully none of that time was spent studying. (To all my professors, just kidding! Well kind of.)
If you spent spring break away from the Massachusetts cold (I envy all of you) and thus forgot all about our thriving sports teams while you were gone, let me just tell you: yikes, did you miss a lot.
I was paying attention and even I got overwhelmed with all of this fascinating sports news for BU students, so much so that trying to find a topic to write about for this week’s column was one daunting task. Not because I had run out of ideas or couldn’t find anything noteworthy to rant about for 800 words, but because there was simply too much. You know you chose the right school when your biggest problem, athletics-wise, is deciding on which successful team to gloat about and glorify.
But fear not, readers! BU sports teams have thrown me a bone this week and given me just about 456 different options for what I could write about, and as a columnist, I’m just licking my chops at all of this delicious sports news. So here we go:
Our women’s hockey team made it all the way to the national championship game before falling to University of Wisconsin, the No. 1 team in the country. The men’s basketball team fought for a spot in March Madness and all of their hard work paid off, but the luck of the draw wasn’t too kind to them; they lost to University of Kansas, a scary-good team who is, once again, one of the four No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament. The men’s hockey team reached the quarterfinals in the Hockey East tournament before losing to Northeastern University.
Sure, defeat seems to be the common thread between all of these new sports stories, but wouldn’t you prefer that your team perform admirably and lose, rather than never even reach a notable game? It’s excruciating to watch your team lose (especially in the national championship), but I’d rather watch a good team fail than a bad team grasp at success.
So this is me being overly optimistic as usual and telling everyone that yes, losing sucks, especially when your season ends on a disappointing note and you have nothing else to look forward to. (As a longtime Red Sox fan, all I can say to this is, “There’s always next year.”) But because wallowing gets you absolutely nowhere, let’s point out all of the positives, shall we?
The women’s hockey team was the first Hockey East squad ever to reach the national championship game. Repeat: the national championship game! Did you expect that? Because I certainly didn’t. I knew these girls were freakishly talented and they had immense potential, but I had no idea that would translate into “national championship” potential.
Oh, and they also made program history in their run to the title game. How great is that? Combine this with the fact that the team only has four players graduating in May, and you’ve got a recipe for success next season.
The men’s basketball team made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in almost a decade, and received the lucky opportunity to battle Kansas, by all accounts the best team in the country and the favorite to win the championship. BU played an intense first half and was only down by four at halftime, and for awhile I thought that maybe, just maybe, our Terriers could become the first No. 16 seed in the history of NCAA basketball to upset a No. 1. I even got a text from a friend who hates everything associated with Boston sports that said, “If you pull this off, I’m moving to Boston.”
But that was just wishful thinking on my part. The Terrier couldn’t repeat their first-half success and fell to a team that might just end up winning it all. I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that there’s absolutely no shame in that.
Our men’s hockey team, after an inconsistent season of ups and downs, couldn’t get to the NCAA tournament, which, unfortunately, marks the first time that the squad has missed the tournament in back-to-back seasons since the ‘80s.
As someone who blamed most of their issues on youth and inexperience, I’m happy to see that only two seniors are graduating this year. Plus, freshman Charlie Coyle earned the Hockey East Rookie of the Year Award, which, when combined with BU’s usually stellar recruiting class, could make for an amazing season next year.
So yes, BU isn’t hanging any championship banners in Agganis Arena anytime soon, but try not to forget how memorable these seasons have been for each team and how hard they all worked to get where they ended up. Just remember: there’s always next year.
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