Survived -- again

That was ugly. BC played its 2nd worst game of the year after the Maryland game and Sparty had plenty of chances to get it done.

But when the smoke cleared, BC was 3-0 on the day: a 75-45 drubbing of Colgate by the women's hoops team, a narrow win over Sacred Heart in men's hoops, and the victory in the Champs Sports Bowl.

A win's a win, especially in a bowl against a solid, physical team. They are clearly better than their record would indicate.

Next week brings plenty of home games to attend after a long dry spell - I can't wait.

Survived

I hate playing Northeastern. Any sport, any day, any venue, playing against the Huntington Hounds is never fun. Northeastern teams in any sport always exhibit the same characteristics:

-Hard work
-High level of intensity
-Scrappy
-Obnoxious fans
-"underdog status,"

and losing to them is generally unacceptable, which makes every game against them living hell. The only time I've ever really had fun at a BC-NU game was the pair of romps the men's hockey team had over them in the Hockey East quarterfinals earlier this season.

Yesterday's hoops game was no exception, although I do have to admit that the second half was pretty entertaining, and I almost could have maybe enjoyed it if my stomach wasn't in a gigantic knot.

The first half was awful. It seemed like every possession was halted by the ref, who called hundreds of ticky tack calls that prevented any rhythm from developing in the game. That, combined with the (as usual) dead atmosphere of Conte Morgue, made the half painful. The Hounds got their lead up to 13 at one point but BC clawed back to go into the locker room down 5, despite displaying an inability to play defense.

Everything seemed to be going NU's way for a while - they managed to keep getting open three pointers, Tyrelle Blair got into foul trouble (forcing Oatmeal into the game), and, somehow, Tyrese Rice was having his worst game in a long time, held to just 3 points for the first 39:55 of the game.

But the last :05 made up for it. Rice showed why he is a leader on this team, taking the ball into traffic with the score tied and knocking down a pretty floater with under 5 seconds to go to put BC on top.

Then, not content to pull a 2006 New England Revolution in the MLS Cup, he flew back on defense, and pressured the Huskies into a turnover with 1.2 seconds to go, effectively killing NU's chances.

BC has a few very winnable games coming up against Sacred Heart, Longwood and Robert Morris before Bleeding Kansas day on January 5. Let's hope they can capitalize on the slim pickings and go into that game 11-2.

The women's team also won against Maine, 68-56, to improve to 9-3. I would have been there, but I slept instead (priorities, I guess). They hit the court Friday at 9 against Colgate.

BC's problem

I'm getting ready to leave Revere to go to the basketball game against Northeastern, and I just realized that somewhere else in Boston, the Northeastern equivalent of me has been up al day with butterflies in his stomach, anxiously awaiting this game and breaking down every little matchup and reading every game preview - this is "the game." They will certainly make their presence felt at Conte today.

The bad news is, other local schools are always going to be gunning for us.

The good news is, you have to be doing something right in order to be such a target.

But the other bad news? We're not nearly good enough to be as targeted as we are.

Eagles drop a close one to UMass

All I really wanted out of this season was to beat some of the other local teams. No such luck. Just over a week after PC topped the Eagles at the garden, UMass ended their long losing streak against BC with an 83-80 victory at Conte Forum.

I'm not really worried about the team (they're young, this will happen), but it sucks to lose to UMass. They are a very good team, so it's not surprising to lose to them, but that doesn't make it any less annoying.

I am not going to pretend to know anything about basketball, but Shamari Spears had a very poor game (butterfingers) and Tyrelle Blair was not his usual self. BC also gave up way too many offensive rebounds.

It just wasn't our night.

The women's basketball team also lost Tuesday night at Fairfield. They will try to recover Sunday afternoon against La Salle, a game I will attend if I'm not asleep (a definite possibility).

Next up for the men's team: a date with Northeastern on December 22. This is another very dangerous game against a team and a fanbase that will be fired up to play a beatable BC squad.

The Huskies are pretty solid this year - they lost by less than ten to UConn and took Maryland to OT. BC will need to play well. I predict that it will be similar to the game against Rhode Island last month: a crowd that favors the away team, an exciting game, and a narrow BC victory.

Rock Bottom at Northeastern.

BC women's hockey lost to Northeastern today, 3-1, at Matthews Arena. My recap, from USCHO:


The view from the upper deck at Matthews: the best view in college hockey.

"Well, this is rock bottom. I think this is the worst BC result during my time here, with the possible exception of men's hoops losing to Duquesne.

Normally during an upset like this you'd say that BC was the better team but the goalie stole it/they got bad breaks. But that's not what happened at all.

Before Chippy comes around spouting 'parity,' let me tell you, it wasn't that much of an accomplishment for NU to win today. BC was not good at all. This was only a sign of parity if your definition is 'equal sub-mediocrity.'

Watching this game was like getting your teeth drilled by Mike for six hours while being forced to watch an endless loop of the movie Gigli and read message board posts by Woody the Woodpecker.

My main concern at the moment is just making the HEA tournament. Forget an at-large bid to NCAAs. Unless things change dramatically, it ain't happening.

Only one thing cheered me up. I was sitting with a family of NU fans who I'm friends with. After NU's 3rd goal, the 10-year-old turned to me and said 'Well, at least you don't go to BU.' Now that's a smart kid.

Likes
-Zavisza scoring. She needed to break out. Her goal came on a weird bounce, but sometimes that's what you need to get out of a rut. She played pretty well overall.
-Molly Schaus. Anyone who says Schaus's performance hasn't been as good this year is on the sticky icky. She made a number of outstanding saves in the 2nd period.
-Wiedmeier-Mirasolo-Beaudry line I thought played pretty well. They did their job, they kept it pinned down in the NU zone whenever they were out there.

Dislikes
-Everything else, I guess?
-Penalty kill. NU went 2-for-3 and it took them all of about 10 seconds to score on their last one. The other PP goal was a 5-on-3, nothing you can do about that (except not take the 2nd penalty)
-Power play. We only got 2 power plays today so it's hard to make a judgment but I thought once again BC got next to nothing going on the PP. Again, Stack on the point baffles me. During BC's PP in the 2nd period, they got the puck out to Stack at the point, who wound up to take a slap shot, then she dribbled it weakly and fell down. NU then broke out with the puck and killed off another 15-20 seconds of the power play.
-Breaking up the first line during the first two periods. I know we're trying to get Line 2 going, but it's taken so long to even get one line going that I wouldn't mess with the combo of Stack-Fards-Spillane until they cool off. Something is clicking there, why mess with it? Stack was moved to a line with Thunstrom and Baskin.
-There's just something missing. $10 to whoever can figure out what it is, 'cause I sure as hell can't."




---

Only one bright spot today: women's bball dispatched another New England 'rival,' Rhode Island, 67-44. We are now 7-2.

Murphy 26/14
Swords 14/9
Brown 10/9

Good to see. It's only URI, but as we learned today, you can't ever take things for granted.

My BC sports-attending personal agenda for the next few weeks.

This is where it starts to get fun!

Saturday, 12-8: Women's Hockey @ Northeastern
Wednesday, 12-12: Men's Basketball vs. UMass
Sunday, 12-16: Women's Basketball vs. La Salle
Saturday, 12-22: Women's Basketball vs. Maine
Saturday, 12-22: Men's Basketball vs. Northeastern
Friday, 12-28: Football, Champs Sports Bowl vs. Michigan State
Monday, 12-31: Women's Basketball vs. Northeastern
Wednesday, 1-2: Men's Basketball vs. Longwood
Thursday, 1-3: Women's Hockey vs. St. Lawrence
Friday, 1-4: Women's Hockey vs. St. Lawrence
Saturday, 1-5: Men's Basketball vs. Kansas
Monday, 1-7: Men's Basketball vs. Robert Morris
Tuesday, 1-8: Women's Hockey @ Harvard
Friday, 1-11: Minnesota Men's Hockey vs. St. Cloud State
Saturday, 1-12: BC Women's Hockey @ Minnesota
Sunday, 1-13: BC Women's Hockey @ Minnesota

Losing to BU is never fun

...made the trip down to the crappy old Walter Brown arena for tonight's BC-BU women's hockey game. We lost 3-2 in overtime to a 3-9-2 team. Not good. I'm beginning to seriously second guess coach King at this point, but I guess that's the easy thing to do at a time like this. They need to get their act together.



For those of you who have never been to Walter Brown Arena - it's a small old arena with a very low ceiling which used to be the home of the BU men's team up until the Agganis was built in 2005. I have a love-hate relationship with the place. It's a frigging dump, period. The seats are uncomfortable, the sight lines are iffy.

But on the good side, even a small crowd of 212 makes that place LOUD AS HELL. Also, the place is dripping with history. Whenever I'm there I close my eyes and try to picture what it was like for BC-BU men's games back in the day. So I guess there are ups and downs.



My game breakdown from USCHO:

"Well, that was not good. It's always crappy to lose to BU, whether it be in the men's Beanpot final or in women's lacrosse.

The NCAA prospects officially look to be on the dim side at the moment. BU played really hard tonight, but I just don't think they're that talented-- not talented enough to basically boss an NCAA-tourney bound team around for a majority of the game.

I'll just (steal an idea from ATLEagle) break it down into things I liked and disliked:

Likes:
-The play of Deb Spillane. She was awesome tonight, and her goal in the 3rd period is the early leader for goal of the year.
-The play of most of the defensemen. I thought Tracy Johnson in particular made a number of good plays.
-Stack's 'moves.' She really had her trademark agility and speed back tonight - it was just like last year.
-Molly Schaus. She bailed BC out with 6 or 7 very good saves.
-BC's ability to crank it up and get a goal when trailing.
-Walter Brown. Place is a dump, but it's very very loud.
-BU pep band. I think they put a little too much percussion into everything (especially Don't Stop Believin') but they do a very good job.
-The BU fans in section 8. We had a really good back and forth with those guys and had a good time with it. No bitterness, no nastiness, just a lot of fun. To me, that's what these games are all about.

Dislikes
-The BC power play. It was very poor tonight. 0-for-5 with very few real dangerous chances. There was also way too much indecision with the puck.
-Stack playing the point on the power play. Poor personnel decision, Coach King. She is too small, she doesn't really have a hard slap shot, and I don't think she's a strong enough passer to play the point. Deb Spillane, Erin Blood and Maggie Taverna are all good choices - not Stack. She's best used along the boards, I think -- at least, that's what it seemed to me all through last year.
-More line shuffling (and this included the PP units)
-Absolutely boneheaded too many men on the ice penalty basically gave the game away. It wasn't like they even got messed up changing lines, they went out there and skated for a good 3, 4 seconds with 6 people on the ice. Very frustrating. BC had to start OT in a shell and never got it into BU's zone in OT, all because of that dumb penalty.
-Not giving 60:00. It's easy for me to say from up in the stands, but it seemed to me that whenever BU scored, BC turned it on and dominated play for a few minutes. They went out, flew around, scored, and tested Wilcox a few additional times. Then they would go back to being sloppy. BU brought it for a full 60:00 and played like it was their title game (hard not to do in that place, **** is it loud, even with 212 people); BC needed to match the intensity.
-BC penalty kill collapsed in too much and gave BU way too much room to work with, and way too many passing lanes. BU I think went 2-for-6 on the PP and they did everything BUT score in their last PP in OT.
-BC constantly let one of BU's forwards sneak behind the d-men, pick up a long pass just past the red line, and go in on a breakaway; then two BC defenders would chase her into the corner, leaving another BU player open out front; BU player #1 would slide it across to the open player for a shot on goal. This play happened at least six times tonight and BC was lucky not to get burned by it.
-BC got pushed around tonight physically. BU definitely did as much throwing the body around as was legally possible and set the tone in this one from the very start (I think SOG was 7-2 at some point in the first period)
-The scorekeeper at BU. Tons of phantom shots on goal. It doesn't really matter, but shots on goal were really probably closer to 30-25. BC would have it down in the BU end and 4 shots on goal would appear for BU. BU would make a crappy dump in that Schaus came out of the net to pick up and it would go on the board as a shot. BC would get three shots on Wilcox and they'd go up on the board as one shot (5 minutes later). Shots would disappear from the scoreboard. This happened last year, too. Absolutely mind-boggling.
-The mongoloid sitting in section 4 below us who screamed 'BC sucks' at us when we were applauding the BU starting lineup. Oh, some people

Way more dislikes than likes, unfortunately. Such is life."

Next up: Saturday at NU, an old arena that I really, really like.

Holy Cross still has sports teams? Really?

The women's basketball team downed Holy Cross 77-58 at Conte tonight. I didn't go. For once , I did the responsible thing and decided I had to stay in and get things done. (Of course, I got next to nothing done.)

I kept Gametracker open and said I'd head down if it got close, but with the exception of a five minute span in the first half, it never got close.

Carolyn Swords had another good game (15/8) but the star tonight was the other big freshman gun inside, Stefanie Murphy (22/11). I think these two have what it takes to hack it in the ACC - although you never know what 6'11'' beastly women Maryland or UNC have waiting in the wings. I'd be lying if I said I knew anything about other ACC women's hoops rosters.

I get back into the swing of things tomorrow, taking the trek down the B-line to Walter Brown for the women's hockey game @ BU, then another women's hockey game Saturday afternoon @ Northeastern.

Upcoming:
Women's Hockey
Thu @ BU, 7 PM
Sat @ NU, 2 PM

Men's Basketball
Sun @ Maryland, 7:30 PM
Wed vs. UMASS, 9 PM

Men's Hockey
Wed @ Harvard, 7

Women's Basketball
Sat vs. URI, 1 PM
Tue @ Fairfield, 7 PM

Things are about to get light as we head toward holiday break, but luckily break itself offers a cornucopia of mediocre home men's and women's basketball games.

The welcome message, re-posted

I posted this in August, but I figured I'd re-post it on the top since I'm going to start publicizing this blog rather than just doing it for my entertainment and for the 3 or 4 people who check from time to time:

"Welcome to BC Eagle Log.

BC already has enough blogs dedicated to people trying to provide insight and opinion on BC sports.... this is not one of those blogs. I don't really have anything insightful to say, anyway. I'll certainly have some commentary (especially about some of the non revenue sports that rarely get discussed on other sites), but this is a site dedicated to the great journey that is a BC sports season - keeping track of the places I've gone, the games I've seen, the people I've met, and the successes we've enjoyed. I'll try to get pictures from every game I go to, and keep this site more for my own memories than for anyone else."

Somehow, I forgot to keep up with this...

...and since we met last, we've seen the football team lose its chance at the national championship. Then its chance at going to the Orange Bowl. Then its chance at even going to the freaking Peach Bowl.

When the bowl pairing with Michigan State was announced, my initial reaction was: F*** that.

But a few days later, I've convinced myself that I'm going. There are three very good reasons to go.

1) it's in Orlando (warm weather!)
2) BC needs the traveling support
3) it's not going to be all that expensive since we're carpooling

About 12 of us are loading up into 2-3 cars and taking the 19 hour trek down. It's sure to be a good time. It's not that great of a bowl game, but you know what? It's Matt Ryan's last game, and a chance to win 11 games for the first time since god knows how long ago (update: 1940, the 'national championship' year).

I'm not ready to fully transition into hockey mode just yet. I've got one last chance to enjoy what's been a fun football season. I might as well enjoy it.

Hockey
Speaking of hockey, it's been a sluggish start on the ice for the men and the women, but last week saw each team win a huge, potentially momentum swinging home-and-home series.

Men
BC men tore BU a new one in a weekend sweep which featured BU goalie Karson Gillespie getting sent to the penalty box during Friday night's 6-2 rout. Truly a moment to remember.



Of course, neither team had a monopoly on dirty play (I was disappointed that Carl Sneep took a penalty for knocking off the net intentionally to stop play - something I affectionately call "Currying"), but I guess that's to be expected in such a bitter rivalry - especially during a season in which both teams have been struggling.

I wonder when the last time was that BC and BU started their season series with both teams coming in with losing records? Truly bizarre. But while BC (5-4-5) is hopefully on the upswing, BU (4-9-2) continues its downward spiral. I feel so bad. *sniff*

Nate Gerbe and Ben Smith each had hat tricks this weekend. I'm not really all that concerned about the team's ability to score goals (even without Brock Bradford), but the defensive end scares me. Luckily, freshman goalie John Muse has been superb so far.

Saturday night @ Agganis was my first men's hockey road trip of the season, and needless to say I greatly enjoyed it (except for the fact that I am suffering through strep throat, meaning that 1) I was really uncomfortable and 2) I couldn't scream and heckle). Agganis is a great place to watch a game.

I went with my friend Char, who had never been to Agganis before. We had scattered seats over in section 120, but we squeezed into one of the BC sections, 106 (in the corner) to watch the game. There were about 10-15 BC students decked out in gold one section to our right. They had a few exchanges with BU's 'section 108' but otherwise it was a fairly peaceful night.

Things picked up in the 3rd, though: when BU scored to make it 4-3 BC, Char turned to me and said "I have never heard anything that loud in my entire life."

The intensity in the crowd for the last 6 minutes helped contribute toward them being 6 of the longest minutes of my life. Luckily, we held on, salvaging a tough day in BC athletics.

The guys next hit the ice next Wednesday night at Harvard.

Women

The women's hockey team started off the year struggling quite a bit under new head coach Katie King. BC has had to work hard to find the right line combinations. All year long, Allie Thunstrom and Meghan Fardelmann have shouldered the load, but the Eagles finally appear to have found line combinations that have gotten the team's other big guns going:

Spillane-Stack-Fardelmann
Thunstrom-Wright-Zavisza
Baskin-Harris-Mirasolo

That line combo produced results for BC: namely, a 2-2 tie on the road and a 6-2 win at home against then #9, now #10 UConn. The series bumped BC back up to #9 in the rankings.

Most importantly, Stack is Stack again. She was named Hockey East player of the week for scoring three goals, including the game tying goal at UConn. Deb Spillane is also back to her old self, making excellent, crisp passes.

Erin Blood is doing a great job quarterbacking the Eagles' power play as well.

My trip to UConn was okay. We got there late due to traffic so I didn't have time to take in any of the exciting surrounding area that is Storrs, CT. Their rink is small, but nice. We sat behind the net and had a perfect view of everything. I didn't see much of UConn's campus, but I could tell it was huge. We passed by Gampel Pavillion. I sieved it, of course.


This picture isn't from our game, but it gives a pretty good sense of UConn's arena.

Needless to say, I'm excited about this team, and the upcoming schedule makes things even more exciting:

Thurs @ BU, Sat @ NU
Jan 4 & 5 vs. #4 St. Lawrence
Jan 8 @ #2 Harvard
Jan 12 & 13 @ #5 Minnesota

Obviously, we're about to learn a lot about this team due to the crazy upcoming schedule... and I am little over a month away from my epic Minnesota road trip. Good times. This will be the first time that I'll get to see 7 of the team's games in a row. I've missed around 5 games so far this year- damn you, 'real life!'

Soccer

Let's not even go there. We lost to UMass in the first round of the NCAA tourney. Really? Really? We'll never win a national title in ANYTHING, Jesus F. Christ.

Basketball - men

I was at the basketball game against St. Louis tonight, and if you like boring basketball, tonight was your night. Granted, I find 'boring basketball' to often be redundant, but I'm usually excited by college games and ESPECIALLY BC games (I can tolerate sports I don't like if it's BC... see: Field Hockey). This one was pretty bad. It was a solid win (61-39) but it's definitely not one for the season highlight reel.

Most importantly, John Oates kept up his 0% shooting percentage on the season.

Rakim Sanders is a beast.

Women

It's hard to judge the women's hoops team so far because they've played one real opponent (Notre Dame) and got absolutely destroyed, but they're off to a 6-1 start. Considering my low expectations for this young team, I'm pretty happy. They play Holy Cross tomorrow night at home. I might make it to the game, but I also might actually study. (pshhhhh)

I'm updating the game log & top moments tonight.

Go Eagles!