Last night, Teddy, Frosty, and I all made our way to Agganis Arena for the BU-UNH game hoping to see BU get back over .500 (which they did with a 69-47 win).
We got inside, picked up some of the free shirts and made our way down, with Frosty and I grabbing a couple of half-court seats and Teddy heading down to the student section since he deems himself to be "a real fan". Then again, by Teddy's standards, nobody besides him at this school is a real fan. Go figure. And what can I say, I enjoy the better view.
As a side note on the free swag, I loved the jersey promo- even if it's not "authentic" like the 2-3 year old jerseys you can get at Barnes and Noble for $55 bucks, they're still pretty freakin nice to wear to a game especially considering the fact that they're free.
For the promo last night, I saw a picture of the shirt and immediately thought they looked ugly. Isn't the point of camo to blend in? Unless you're tagging along with the Kool-Aid man, you're gonna stick out like a sore thumb in one of those things.
And to add to that, these things aren't your typical cotton t-shirts; in fact, they're like some sort of cheap mesh material that will be a guaranteed burden to anyone who values the health of their nipples.
Anyhow, the environment at Agganis last night was sterile as ever. I was thinking that it was as empty in The Greek as I'd ever seen it, and after checking out the ESPN box score from the game last night, it turned out to be worse than I thought for the attendance figues: 1,091.
So Frosty and I posted up at mid-court and were talking BU and college hoops in general. We did what most fans of the game do: when a bad play happens, you ride the player, and when they do something good, you give them their due praise.
We'd call Valdas Sirutis Raskolnikov and when he'd turn the ball over or miss a point blank mid range jumper, we'd shake our heads and maybe crack a joke or two.
We'd call Jeff Pelage The Junkyard Dog or just Junk and get a little dismayed with every foul or turnover he'd commit. But we'd also commend him on his newly-developed soft hands when he'd collect one of this ten rebounds of the game. I'm beginning to think he dunks those things in lotion before the game. Whatever it is, it's paying off.
We've even bestowed a nickname upon Patrick Hazel: Ugly John Holland. Trust me, I'm extremely excited for Hazel next year, I think he's going to be the best of the transfers and a potential star in America East, but c'mon there's a similarity to be had between these two:
Obviously there are some differences between the two, so it's not quite on the Mike Tomlin-Omar Epps level, but still, there's somethin there.
But each of us seemed to have a BU player we were riding pretty hard throughout the game for some poor play.
For Frosty, it was Jake O'Brien. JOB had a pretty good game for the final stat line, but his shooting wasn't very good (3-9 on FGs) and it seemed like he missed easily four or five baby hooks that any respectable low post player should hit. We'd maybe say a few things like "Oh, that's why you're still here O'Brien, not at BC or Xavier", but really nothing too bad. From all I've heard Jake's a very nice guy and I could never have too many personal gripes with a guy who we saw wearing a Cincinnati Reds hat outside Agganis after the game.
For me, it was Corey Lowe. Anyone who reads this blog every now and then knows that I can be hard on Corey, but it's nothing bad. I recognize that he's a very talented player and a very good shooter. I realize that he's easily the second best player on this team and when he heats up, the man's the very definition of a game changer. I mean let's get serious: I gave him some lofty praise by giving him the nickname C.L. Smooth.
That being said, though, Corey frustrates me. He's the very definition of a gunner: whether he's hot or not, he's going to jack up shots, even if there's a guy right on him and he's falling away from 27 feet out. That's just who he is. Between that and his high turnover mark, I've seen Lowe shoot this team out of some games. But the key is that he makes up for them by winning games for this team. No way they would have beaten UNH last month if it weren't for Corey. And again, none of this is personal; I still think Corey's a great player and from what I've heard from a lot of people, he's a really nice guy.
So there I was last night watching C.L. Smooth shoot 2-10 from the field, so naturally I got on him a little bit for those things that I mentioned in a prior paragraph. I wasn't too hard on him, with the exception being when Corey went down on the floor in the first half and I muttered to myself "Addition by subtraction".
After the game ended, Frosty took it upon himself to compliment the girl sitting a couple rows in front of us because she got to the game with a group of like thirty friends and by the time that the final buzzer sounded, she was the only one still there. He told her that she's a true fan, and she proceeded to ask if we went to BU. When we both said yes, she said something along the lines of "Wow, you all were really critical that game." We kind of shrugged our shoulders because you know, it's all part of being a fan, as I've said earlier.
Anyhow after talking for another thiry seconds or so, we came to find out that this just isn't some ordinary fan: this was Corey Lowe's girlfriend. I would have paid hundreds of dollars for a picture of my face after she said that. The three of us ended up talking a little more and based on that, I think things ended well in terms of her opinion of us, more so me since I was the one tearing into her boyfriend for the past forty minutes and change.
Although I think she's got the impression that we think John Holland's ugly.
So if there's a lesson to be learned here, it's to be careful about what you say at games- aside from my one comment, I'm not going to apologize for what Frosty or I said throughout the contest- because you never know who could be listening near you. Just know that when it comes to some verbal jousting, it's never good to get personal when it's just BU Basketball.
And a final side note: let's calm down about Raising Cane's here at BU people. Yes, the buy one get one frees are awesome. Yes, they have easily the best sweet tea I've ever had in my time here in Boston and their Texas Toast is delicious, but let's face some facts.
The chicken's okay, but not too great. The slaw's in need of some serious work. The prices may not seem too bad, but they're freaking chicken fingers- those things shouldn't cost much more than a buck apiece. And they don't offer any BBQ sauce, just the so-so Cane's sauce. So let's get back to Earth here with the praise because in my humble opinion at least, Popeye's still reigns supreme when it comes to chicken on the BU campus.
