Look for me on ESPN360: The Dayton Preview

With Christmas having just come to a close, the BU Basketball team's had some well-deserved time off for the holidays, having not played since the game against Mount Saint Mary's on the 22nd. The team returns to action tomorrow night against a far tougher opponent, the Dayton Flyers.

BU currently stands at 5-6 overall, Dayton at 9-2, with this being BU's last game of their non-conference slate.


Game Location: Dayton, Ohio

Projected Starting Lineup

Corey Lowe, G

Tyler Morris, G

John Holland, F

Jake O'Brien, F

Jeff Pelage, C

It seems like Chambers has really grown to like this lineup, so I'd almost expect this to be the status quo for the rest of the season.

Reasons for Optimism

Stop traffic, the Terriers are on a three game winning streak, the team's longest of the year, with this current mark surpassing the team's previous longest winning streak of one.

Regardless of who this team was playing, a three game streak is always a positive thing, so maybe this team is really starting to come together, having become more comfortable with Chambers' fast-paced offense.

The Mount Saint Mary's game highlighted a lot of things that BU has improved upon, most notably the team's shooting percentage. The team shot 56% from the field against the Mountaineers last week, by far the best shooting performance BU has turned in this year. Whether you view this as rapid improvement or another piece of evidence that this team cannot shoot, you cannot deny that this is progress at the very least.

John Holland's continuing to play well and Jake O'Brien has really emerged as a reliable, go-to scorer, but I want go as far as to call him a star, JOB's still got a lot of holes in his game.

Additionally, Dayton could possibly have one of the worst mascots in Divison I athletics, Rudy the Flyer.



Evidently Dayton students like him though so just take that as proof as to why those kids didn't get into better Catholic schools like Notre Dame, Georgetown, BC or even Xavier.

And for whatever it's worth, Teddy's got it in his mind that BU's got a really good chance to win this game. I don't happen to agree, but I can certainly see where there would be some sort of motivation for the team to extend their winning streak and end non-conference play on a strong note. This is really the last team that BU's going to be playing this year that most people would consider to be a legitimate opponent, and if the Terriers end up winning America East, a win against Dayton could go a long way in terms of seeding. For a team that really has yet to have a marquee win, this could go a long, long way.

Reasons for Concern

We'll start right now with the internal problems for BU, with B.J Bailey's recent departure from the team being at the epicenter of it.

It was announced before the MSM game last week that B.J is leaving BU and plans to return home and then transfer to another school to play ball. The reason for the departure is being described as "homesickness", which some may think as BS since Bailey's from New Jersey which isn't too far away, but it's a good reminder that these people who we watch and write about are just college kids, and at least on my part, I can remember being homesick at times as a freshman last year. Besides, Bailey didn't completely fit into the plans for the team with Chambers' monster recruiting haul for next year.

On my part at least, I wish BJ nothing but the best of luck.

Bailey's absence, however, leaves BU with an even thinner roster that will likely feature the five aforementioned starters along with Carlos Strong, Sherrod Smith, Valdas Sirutis, then walk-ons Tunde Agboola, Michael Schulze, and Brendan Sullivan. Subtracting the walk-ons from the equation, that's an eight man rotation. And for a team that struggles staying out of foul trouble, that spells danger not only for this game, but really for the remainder of the season as well, especially considering the fact that this team has still not shown an ability to play defense all that well.

On the other side of things is that the Dayton team that BU's facing off against is a very good squad. They started the season ranked in the top 25, but fell out after tough losses to Vanilla-nofun and Kansas State down in the same Puerto Rico Tip-Off that BU played in. Two losses against two top 20 teams really isn't too bad at all, and seeing as this team was the preseason favorite to win a pretty tough Atlantic-10, this may not be pretty for BU.

Especially when Dayton's got a guy like Chris Wright on the floor for them.

Now it might just be me, but I really don't want to picture Jake O'Brien, Valdas Situtis and Junk try to stop this guy.


The Bottom Line

This is by far the best team that BU's played in a while, so let's see if the team can respond and end their non-conference schedule, along with this year and decade on a positive note.

As a side note, I'm making the three hour trek from Louisville to Dayton for this, so try to look for me and my trusted comrades on ESPN360 if they're even showing the game.


Teddy's Prediction

Dayton 84 BU 81

Craig's Prediction

Dayton 87 BU 65