GW......Again

Recently, news came from the BU Athletic Department that BU basketball would be participating in a pod of the Preseason NIT, in Villanova's pod based in Philadelphia. Obviously, this is a great opportunity for a program looking to make a name for itself and expand its "brand". It's also a nice little chance to play some teams you wouldn't normally get the chance to, like in this Puerto Rico Shootout this past year when BU got to compete against Kansas State, Indiana and Georgia Tech.

Any of those above reasons make BU's inclusion in the Preseason NIT all that more intriguing. However, the tournament brackets were recently released and BU is playing (drumroll please)....George Washington aka the team that it seems like we play every single year.



BU and GW are like two twins seperated along a coast: we're both private schools with urban campuses in big cities. We're about the same size, we both play in mid-major sports conferences and we're both extremely overpriced considering our respective placements on the college rankings (which, shocker, we're seperated by like two places on). Any college book I looked at said that if I'm considering BU, to look at GW and vice versa. You could almost refer to BU as GW North and GW as BU South.

So here we find ourselves again, facing Karl Hobbs and his bunch from our nation's capital, a team who I've seen us look terrible against for two consecutive years at home in front of at the very worst utterly disappointed and at best entirely apathetic home crowds at Agganis.

A win would secure a likely matchup with Villanova, but based on our success or lack thereof against GW in the past several years, let's just worry about the first game for now

C.L. Smooth to Greece

With BU basketball season a mere three months away, there is some more news from the hardwood that doesn't involve recruiting or Coach Chambers' Twitter updates. As an aside, never expect H & V to get a Twitter. Not gonna happen, unless my dignity gets abducted Jean-Benet Ramsey style.

Anyhow, word is now out that an all-time great from BU hoops, Corey Lowe, has signed on to play basketball professionally in Greece for a team called Kavala-Panorama, meaning he may or may not be playing against Olympiakos, a team that may or may not feature John Holland.

This is what I expected to happen with Corey, even though some thought he may have an outside shot at the NBA. I believe Fred Sanford has a term for those kinds of folks.



This isn't an insult in any way: we've seen over the past month and a half that even outstanding college players (Scottie Reynolds, Jon Scheyer, Tyler Smith, Raymar Morgan) don't make the NBA for whatever reason and making a living playing ball overseas is nothing to laugh at, considering those guys usually make hundreds of thousands of dollars playing the game they love.

Teddy knows far more about Greece than I do, but I do know that they have the notable distinction of having invented both civilization and anal sex. Admittedly, an odd combo.

Hopefully good times ahead for Corey as he enjoys what is hopefully a successful career living amongst half of the cast from season two of "The Wire". His game should translate well to an international style of play and, as always, we wish him nothing but the best of luck.



Make BU proud

BU Hoops Picks Up Recruit

Long time, no see. Admittedly, it's been a while since I've posted on the blog; believe it or not, things have been pretty busy down here in Kentucky and I thought maybe Teddy could pick up some of the slack, but he's currently at his frat's national convention in Miami (likely meaning there's some double penetration going on, and I'm not talking about females here).

Anyhow, news hit the wire (not the TV show) that BU basketball has picked up a recruit for the 2011 class, a wing player by the name of Zach Chionuma. He's 6'3" so look for him to play some shooting guard and maybe a little bit of small forward, but most likely just the two guard spot.

Reports are that he's a very athletic player whose skill set has yet to match up with his raw athleticism, so he could very well be a sort of project in the making. ESPN's rated him as a 40, which for those who don't know, is the lowest possible ranking for a recruit on their site. I wouldn't get too alarmed about the numbers though -- mid-majors and low- majors like BU stockpile these sorts of 40 range players and sometimes they can develop into a solid contributor on the team. Jake O'Brien came out of BC High as a 40, so it's truly a tossup.

I wasn't, however, able to find a video or even a Google Image of him, which of course isn't always a good sign at least for blogging purposes.

Chambers didn't even have to leave New England to pick up Chionuma, which I'm okay with, but BU shouldn't try to get too much local talent from the New England states, because hey, let's face it, there's not a whole lot of basketball talent up in the very Northeast. I can count maybe three or foour players from New England who have done much of anything -- Patrick Ewing (Boston by way of Jamaica, so that kind of counts), Reggie Lewis (Boston), Jeff Adrien (Brookline), Reggie Lewis (Boston), and Marcus Camby (Hartford).

All in all, I like Chambers' main strategy -- focus on hoops hotbeds like Philly and New York, developing connections there in order to create a pipeline for years to come. The Chionuma commitment obviously isn't huge news, but this is a guy who could potentially be a solid role player for this program.