Rock Chalk Terriers: BU Beats Canisius For Fourth Straight Bracketbusters Win

Photo by Junhee Chung, Daily Free Press

The BU men's basketball team overcame a 3-point halftime deficit and a slow shooting start to defeat the Canisius Golden Griffins on Saturday in ESPN's yearly Bracketbusters event. Down 32-29 at the end of the first, the Terriers pulled away to a 70-62 victory on the shoulders of (once again) 48 combined points by John Holland and Darryl Partin. Solid defensive efforts in both halves allowed the team to take over once they found their shooting stroke and for much of the second half it seemed like the Terriers would be in good shape. This win makes six straight for the Terriers and is encouraging in that it showed the team's ability to play from behind as well as take care of business against the teams it should beat, which will be very important both against Binghamton and in the first round or two of the AE tournament. All in all it was a much more composed team than the one that lost in the fairly recent past to Hartford, UMBC and Quinnipiac. Still though, Coach Chambers called the win "ugly" and said that the team failed to keep Canisius from executing the game they wanted to play while crediting Partin ad Holland with carrying the team to the W. The Terriers are putting themselves in a good position to beat Binghamton and perhaps Vermont in their last two games of the season. This may be a team capable of making an AE tournament run and qualifying for the NCAAs.

Elsewhere in the AE, Vermont got crushed by Charleston 85-70, Hartford beat UMBC 64-57, Manhattan squeaked by Stony Brook 64-63 in overtime, Siena beat Maine in Albany 71-60 and UNH suffered an embarrassing 58-49 loss to Marist. Overall a bad weekend for the AE as at least SB and New Hampshire should have been able to pull off wins, with SB playing at home and both teams facing horrible opposition. The conference really showed itself deserving of it's 29th place Pomeroy rating (out of 32 conferences and the independents) with only one BB win and the marquee team suffering a blowout on ESPNU. Not goo for my predictions record either as I now move to 5-4 by splitting on the weekend (I got the BU, Vermont and Hartford/UMBC games correct)

Also yesterday's game that I didn't get a chance to preview/predict went to Albany over Binghamton by a score of 57-54 in Vestal. Makes me feel better with BU paying the Bearcats a visit in the next few days to know that the lesser bu (lower-case intended) is eminently beatable at home. I don't think anyone's arguing that Albany is a better team than the Terriers.

ESPN recapped the BU win on Saturday, while Full Court Press grades the Terriers against the Griffs, posts some cool pictures and put up video of PChamb's presser. They also break down the state of the AE, prior to some games this week with immense conference tourney implications. (Albany/Maine, BU/Vermont, Hartford vs. UNH/Stony Brook)