Weekend Recap

Rough weekend for BC fans, as the hockey team lost a pair of decisions at Vermont while the hoops team suffered a bad defeat at Clemson.

The bottom line is that both teams are struggling right now. The basketball team's problems are relatively simple. The unfortunate fact is that, with Sean Williams gone, the team simply doesn't have the talent to challenge for an ACC title. Clemson is an improved team this year, but that doesn't excuse a 20-point loss. The only legitimate big men on the team right now are John Oates and Tyrelle Blair, and that simply isn't good enough to get it done. Dudley is his usual self, Sean Marshall has been playing great recently, and Shamari Spears has shown me a lot this year but the fact is that we are not a very talented team right now. The good news is that we do still have enough to get an NCAA tournament bid, but even that will require significantly better play than what we saw in Clemson yesterday.

I will say that the first thing that needs to change is that we need to start getting more guys into the rotation. If we continue going with 7 guys, they are going to be exhausted come March. Tyler Roche and Daye Kaba are going to have to be thrown into the fire, for better or worse.

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Hockey's problems are much more perplexing, because it's not like the team doesn't have talent. Gutterson Fieldhouse is one of the toughest places in the country to play, but nonetheless this is a team that is sorely disappointing everyone right now. There's still time to turn it around, but it needs to be done now. Brian Boyle has been a huge disappointment so far in his senior year, and guys like Brett Motherwell and Dan Bertram are simply not putting forth the kind of performances that we need. I wish that I could sit here and put together a point-by-point list of problems that need to be addressed in order to turn the team around, but the problem is that I can't. I simply don't know what is wrong. This team is missing a spark, and the thing is that they've been able to find it from time to time, but not hold on to it. They had it in the sweep in Madison, they had it in the gritty 1-0 win at Agganis earlier this year, they had it in the OT win at Maine, and they even had it in last weekend's sweep of Merrimack. But the problem is that one night we'll come out and simply dominate a team, and the next night come up with a completely gutless and heartless performance like the ones in Burlington.

We have 2 huge games with BU coming up, first a makeup of the rescheduled fog game on Wednesday night in Conte followed by another trip to Agganis on Friday night (by the way, if you have a spare ticket for the game at BU please e-mail me at eaglefan3884@gmail.com). That's followed by a pair of absolute must-win games in Chestnut Hill against Lowell and UMass. If this team is capable of salvaging the season, I believe we'll know it by the end of that UMass game on Feb. 2nd.

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The bad news for BC fans continued on Saturday with the announcement that donor-based seating will be instituted for prime football tickets. Personally, I'm not entirely opposed. The thing is that before instituting DBS we need to be certain that we can "get away" with it. If we end up with the midfield sections of Alumni Stadium half-empty, then it is a bad idea--even if the athletic department is bringing in more cash. Additionally, we need to be sure that there will still be areas in the stadium where DBS is not required. It shouldn't cost a family of 4 more to see a BC game than to see a Patriots game. But assuming that all those concerns are addressed, I don't have a problem in theory with the athletic department raising funds in this manner.

The weekend's news wasn't all bad, with the report coming today that 3-star Patterson, NJ QB Chris Johnson has de-committed from Buffalo and will attend BC. While Johnson is definitely a project (as the Buffalo commitment indicates), the kid does have physical tools. Rocket arm, 4.6 40, seems to do a good job checking down his progressions. I still do want to see us grab a stud, 4- or 5-star QB next year but I can sleep a lot easier at night knowing that the future of the BC QB position isn't in the hands of Ross Applegate, Billy Flutie, or praying that we can get a guy who is ready to come in and start as a redshirt freshman in 2009.