Rock Chalk Terriers/America BEasts: Season Finale(s)

With little to lose or gain (except perhaps confidence), our Boston University Terriers head into their regular season finale against the Vermont Cat-mounters Catamounts at Burlington's Patrick Gym. Unfortunately, the Terriers may be without the services of team leader John Holland as he injured his ankle in the recent game at Binghamton, leading to the rest of the Terriers having to barely gut out a 53-51 victory. Given Holland's absence, tomorrow's game won't really be an adequate preview of the possible AE title game as one of the best players for either team will almost definitely not make an appearance.

Prediction: Vermont 68-58. Neither team has much to gain and Patrick is a tough place to play, especially with not John Holland. With him back it could be a very different story if the teams meet in the conference championship game, though.

Elsewhere in the AE tomorrow:

Albany at Maine: Maine and Albany are locked in at the 3 and 4 seeds in the tournament so neither really has anything to gain or lose no matter the outcome other than as perhaps with BU and UVM, confidence. That being said, Maine is still looking to recover from their massive tailspin that they only recently ended against UNH so perhaps the Black Bears will feel the have more to prove tomorrow Verdict: Maine 65-57

Binghamton at Stony Brook: Stony Brook has 5th locked up and will be playing Albany no matter what happens whereas Binghamton is gonna be playing UMBC in the 8-9 opening round game at the AE tournament with or without a win. Neither team's been good lately but SBU has been at least good enough to pick up a couple wins lately against decent AE teams (Maine @ UHart). Verdict: Stony Brook 65-55

New Hampshire at Hartford: Given their injury situation this year the Wildcats could've been forgiven for falling to the conference cellar but they've hung tough to fight their way to what could be an almost-.500 record for the conference season. (Plus Binghamton and UMBC set the bar very, very low for the cellar) UNH also hasn't been terrible on the road while Hartford has done a terrible job defending their homecourt despite home wins against Maine and BU. However, both teams will be playing very intensely as they fight for 6th and 7th place in the conference and matchups against either Maine or BU. Verdict: UNH 65-60

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)

America BEasts: BracketBuster Saturday Preview

So I'm 2-1 so far picking AE games so here's my go at trying to see how the BEasts will do this weekend in their ESPN BracketBuster matchups against teams from other mediocre conferences this afternoon and evening:

Stony Brook vs. Manhattan: The Seawolves have been a disappointment after last year's great regular season run (mostly due to injuries) but Manhattan is just godawful. Their only road wins on the way to 5-22 are against equally horrible NJIT and Marist.

Verdict: Stony Brook, 62-55

Vermont at Coll. of Charleston: Two teams that are 13-2 in conference and putting together really great seasons, both rated in the Pomeroy top 100 (UVM 100, Charleston 71...higher than BC!) Vermont's won 15 of 17 and 9 in a row, but Charleston has performed similarly in a somewhat tougher conference. Also CoC has a quality win against Tennessee earlier in the year. Vermont's best win, on the other hand is Iona. The Cougs always put up a good amount of points, but Vermont seems to not give many up. In the end, I gotta go with the more proven home team, but I don't think they blow out the Cats.

Verdict: Charleston, 75-67

UNH at Marist: Marist is just so so bad and UNH has won enough by overcoming injuries to be a midpack team in the AE with the potential for a .500 finish. Roll 'Cats!

Verdict: UNH, 67-59

Maine at Siena: Talk about steps back! Since Fran McCaffery flew the coop to go coach at Iowa the Saints have gone downhill in a hurry, and are likely not to finish at 500 in the MAAC final standings. Penn State trumps Georgia Tech in the battle of best NC win between these two teams. Both teams come in riding four-game losing streaks and are in need of a win to get back on track. Maine has given up 70 in all of their last 5 games (going 1-4) after riding good defense to a 8-1 conference record. Siena has proven to be beatable at home and Maine can win on the road.

Verdict: Maine, 68-63

And in the only conference game of the day:

Hartford at UMBC: Both teams are just so, so bad. Buckle up, this is gonna be an ugly, ugly game.

Verdict: Hartford 58-53

America BEasts: Vermont, Binghamton Lay Waste To Foes

Two blowouts that I really did not see coming took place in AE action tonight. First, the one that surprised me more was to see Binghamton absolutely annihilate UHart in Hartford tonight by a score of 77-47. With wins over BU and Maine, as well as on the road at Binghamton, I really didn't see Hartford having much of a hard time tonight. Clearly I was incorrect as this game was more or less decided by halftime with the Bearcats shooting 55% from the floor and 62% from behind the arc. Having four players score over 12 point just proved too much for the Hawks on a night when they just couldn't buy a basket. With a solid defensive effort though, I see UHart as a potential spoiler for a careless favorite in the AE first round.

Although I expected the Vermont win against Maine, I thought we'd see a much closer game there in Orono. Instead the Cats pulled out to a 16 point lead over the course of the second half and coast on down to a victory. Evan Fjeld and Brendan Bald combined for 36 to lead their team to victory and further establish themselves as the team to beat this year in the AE. It's hard to beat a team shooting 60% when you only are making 41%. At this point I'd just say stick a fork in the Black Bears, because they are done. This is good news for Terriers fans as it more or less locks up the 2 seed in the conference tourney for our Dogs.

Next stop Bracketbusters: Preview to come later this week! Blogger out.

AE 2011 Predictions Record: 2-1

America BEasts: Vermont vs. Maine 2/16

If the Catamounts only lose one conference game the rest of the season, this will probably be the one. Maine, who started conference play 8-1, desperately needs a win in order to not lose touch with last night's victorious Boston University Terriers. (more on them later :-)...) The Black Bears are in a situation where their backs are against the wall and they've proven they can beat Vermont, winning 72-58 on the road earlier this season. If they can win this game, coming off 4 straight losses, Maine remains in the hunt for the second seed in the tournament behind BU.

Vermont on the other hand can close the book on the AE regular-season championship with a win over Maine at Alfond Arena. They have 2 chances in their last 2 conference games to beat Maine and BU, the only teams in the AE that have beaten them so far this season, and thus prove that they can beat the league's upper echelon, as it were, before the tournament. As a BU fan, if you believe the Terriers can win out, including a victory over Vermont on the road to end the season, you definitely want to see Maine win, because otherwise BU's best chance is to finish 2nd. If Vermont loses and BU can beat Binghamton and Vermont on the road, they will win the America East and get the #1 seed in the tournament.

Prediction: Vermont over Maine 67-60

Elsewhere in the conference Hartford is taking on Binghamton at home. Hawks have a lot of bad losses and have been very up and down but wins over BU and Maine (twice) make me think...

Hartford over Binghamton 65-55