Tonight at Matthews Arena the Northeastern men’s basketball team and the Boston University Terriers meet in a midseason clash of America East rivals. You can talk about their identical conference records of 5-1 and how one will take sole possession of second place in the conference, but that’s not really what’s at stake.
It’s still mid-January and regardless of tonight’s outcome there will be plenty of opportunities to make up for one loss (11 games to be precise, with five of them at home and one more against BU).
This game is about respect for the Huskies. Despite having players with better numbers, the Huskies haven’t beaten BU in their last four tries; including their last meeting in which the Huskies squandered a 10-point half time lead by being outscored 54-30 in the second half.
Sure, the Huskies have the nation’s leading shot blocker in Shawn James and they have the highest scoring backcourt in the conference in Marcus Barnes and Jose Juan Barea, but college basketball teams aren’t measured by statistics, they are measured by not only how many wins they have, but for whom those wins come against.
The most intriguing match-up on the floor tonight will be one of the fiercest personal rivalries the conference has to offer, in Barea and Terrier point guard Chaz Carr.
The two preseason All-Conference selections have had some vicious head-to-head battles over the past two years and tonight’s game should be no different.
Since Barea joined the conference in Carr’s second year at BU, he has had much better numbers. This year, Barea is the second-leading scorer in the conference, averaging 21.4 points per game and leads the America East in assists with 6.8 per game. Carr has never been able to match Barea’s stats and this year is averaging 14.4 points per game and 2.8 assists, but Carr has the edge in a much more important category: wins.
Carr has won four-of-five games against the Barea-led Huskies. Barea has had some great games against BU; he dropped 29 points against the Terriers in a 76-74 loss on Jan. 2, 2004. Barea held Carr to just 16 points but still came up short.
CN8 will air tonight’s game, while NESN will air their Feb. 20 match-up.
