BOSTON – You could tease Boston University players and coaches that they had this one all the way, and in a sense, they really believed they did. There was never a doubt in their minds that they would come out on top in Saturday’s America East championship game, even if their 56-54 win seemed in doubt for most of the game.
“Even though they were up 15, we knew we were going to try to get stops, we knew eventually we were going to make some shots, and we got ourselves to the foul line,” said head coach Pat Chambers. “To only take the lead with two seconds to go is not how I drew it up, but we’ll take it.”
Stony Brook led until the final seconds of the game. This was a Seawolves team that no one expected to be in the title game, not in the preseason after top player Tommy Brenton went down with a knee injury in the off-season that forced him to redshirt this season, and not before last weekend when they entered as the fifth seed. They had to play freshmen more than they might have wanted to and had to play differently because of how Brenton impacted the game on the boards. And not surprisingly, with no pressure on them and a supportive fan base that made the trip up to Boston, the Seawolves played very freely and controlled the game for the first half and some of the second half.
That was something Chambers told his team they needed to do. They needed to play more freely, and he gave them a message at halftime that had nothing to do with X’s and O’s. It was similar to something he has told his young team often this season.
“It was more talking to them about, just play, have fun, enjoy this, embrace it,” said Chambers. “Don’t fear failure. I drew up a diagram on the board, and I didn’t use it. It was more about the mental part of the game than anything. I just said to go out there and play loose with confidence.”
As happened a number of times on the season, and indeed on the season itself, the Terriers got going after a slow start. There have been many times this season where they fell behind and even trailed in the second half, then got a big second half to come away with a win. As was often the case, John Holland was the key to it, although not always like on Saturday when a personal 14-0 run cut a 41-26 lead down to one and set the stage for the finish. The senior scored 23 of his 27 points in the latter frame en route to Most Outstanding Player honors.
The Terriers have as much talent as anyone in the conference this season, but they also have a lot of youth. Holland is the only senior, and alongside him in the starting lineup on Saturday were two freshmen and two transfers, neither of whom played major minutes in their careers before becoming eligible this season. There was certainly a learning curve, and when Jake O’Brien went down with what proved to be a season-ending injury in late December, the Terriers took a hit.
January wasn’t easy for this team between the youth and adjusting to life without O’Brien. But by February, the team started to hit its stride. They won every game that month, including a big win without Holland at Vermont after he went down with a sprained ankle at Binghamton a few nights earlier. That may have been a blessing in disguise, because at times they probably rode Holland too much. Too often, the freshmen were a little deferential to the upperclassmen, and thus weren’t as effective as they could be.
“We played a game and a half without John, and I really believe that helped us last weekend and today,” Chambers said, referring as well to the quarterfinals and semifinals of the conference tournament. “Our guys still had confidence that we could defend and rebound, and we won the games John was out.”
Then they got him back, and won the ones that counted the most. And there was never a doubt in anyone’s mind that would happen.
