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.