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AMHERST, Mass. -- Thursday night’s visit to the University of Massachusetts by Butler, in all likelihood the Bulldogs’ one and only game in Amherst as an Atlantic 10 foe, certainly created a buzz in the area.

But from start to finish, the visitors took most of the sizzle out of the matchup.

The 9,341 fans at the Mullins Center, just shy of being the first sellout at UMass since 2006, were willing, but Butler controlled the tempo largely by dominating on the boards, handing the Minutemen a 73-62 loss that deals a serious blow to any hopes UMass had of garnering an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.

UMass, which hasn’t been to the Big Dance since 1998, had been on the fringes of the bubble conversation. But a high profile win over Butler, which had been in the Top 25 for 11 weeks before dropping out in the most recent polls, plus a season-ending win over Rhode Island on Saturday and a couple of wins in next week’s A-10 tournament would have made UMass a legitimate talking point for the selection committee.

Instead, at 18-10 overall and 8-7 (tied for seventh) in the league, the Minutemen likely will be an NCAA afterthought unless they win the A-10 tourney.

“We couldn’t find our rhythm or our groove,” said point guard Chaz Williams, who normally drives the UMass offense but was given little room to maneuver by Butler’s defense. Williams finished with 8 points and 8 assists. “We weren’t getting any transition points and we weren’t getting any rebounds. Our game is transition, and we weren’t getting any transition chances. It was real frustrating.”

To Williams’ point, UMass had only six fast-break points and were outrebounded, 37-20. Butler had 17 offensive rebounds, which often led to open shots and hoops that demoralized the Minutemen and the crowd.

“You get outrebounded by 17, that’s unacceptable,” UMass coach Derek Kellogg said. “When you don’t get any defensive rebounds, you’re not going to get any transition baskets and that’s what happened tonight. They actually out-toughed us.

“We understand it was a missed opportunity with a great crowd. The fortunate thing is the season’s not over. We still have an opportunity in front of us.”

UMass missed its first three shots and trailed from wire to wire. The Minutemen got within a point midway through the first half, but were behind 30-22 at the break, their lowest output in the first 20 minutes this season.

Butler built the lead to 14 in the first 2:30 of the second half, and while UMass got within 8 and briefly caused the Bulldogs some problems with its pressure defense, it failed to capitalize on the other end. And while Butler was flummoxed by VCU's "havoc" defense in an 84-52 blowout on Saturday, the Minutemen's pressure was nowhere near as relentless or disruptive.

A pair of wide open dunks by Kameron Woods (17 points off the bench) on passes by Roosevelt Jones (8 assists) on back-to-back possessions extinguished any flicker of fire for the Minutemen, giving Butler a 54-41 lead with 8:47 to play.

Butler, which got 17 points from Rontei Clark and 13 points and 15 rebounds from Andrew Smith, held a double-digit lead the rest of the way.

The Minutemen rode their 3-point shooting to a big win at Xavier last weekend (13 for 25), but were just 4 for 18 beyond the arc on Thursday. Senior Terrell Vinson (17 points on 6-of-9 shooting) was their only reliable option offensively.

Despite the disappointing outcome on his Senior Night, Vinson isn’t ready to pack it in.

“Yeah, I’d rather have the win,” he said, “but the season is far from over. We’ve got a lot more games.”

Sometimes in college hoops you can see the next big thing coming. There’s often a new coach in charge, or a top-rated recruiting class either coming to town or coming of age.

If those are the criteria, then it’s no wonder no one saw the Northeastern Huskies coming.

Bill Coen is in his seventh season as head coach on Huntington Avenue, and in all those seasons Coen has never been accused of bringing in a top recruiting class. The Huskies returned their leading scorers and rebounders from last season, but they didn’t add any McDonald’s All-Americans to the roster.

Then, early in practice for the 2012-13 season, they lost senior point guard Jonathan Lee to a foot injury.

And yet, something unexpected happened: The Huskies started winning. And winning, and winning some more.

Coen said it helped that the NCAA allowed coaches to work with their players this summer for the first time. It also helped that Northeastern went on a foreign trip (the Huskies trekked to Canada) and to the Great Alaska Shootout, which really provided a boost as the Huskies made it all the way to the finals.

“I think we went up to the Great Alaska Shootout and beat Belmont, which is a tremendous team, great coach, great program, NCAA team year-in and year-out and we did that without our first-team preseason all-conference player,” Coen said. “And so I think that was a watermark for our program this year, and guys really started to believe how good they could be. As we said in the locker room, that team is gonna be in the NCAA tournament, and I think when we did that we had guys really start to believe in themselves.”

They got Lee back before the start of conference play, and then they really took off. The Huskies won their first eight Colonial Athletic Association games, and clinched their first title when they beat Georgia State in overtime on Feb. 27.

Northeastern picked a good season to win that first CAA regular-season title. Because Towson and UNCW are ineligible for postseason play due to low APR scores, and because VCU is in the Atlantic 10 these days and both Georgia State (Sun Belt) and Old Dominion (Conference USA) are ineligible due to upcoming conference changes, only seven teams qualify for the conference tourney in Richmond, Va.

That means the Huskies get a bye into the semifinal round, where they will face the winner of the George Mason-Drexel matchup.

“Fortunately we have a bye, don’t play until Sunday at 2,” Coen said. “That’s given us a little extra time to get healthy and get a few extra practices in. We’re excited about the tourney and the opportunity in front of us.”

Coen & Co. went 4-0 against those George Mason and Drexel teams in the 2012-13 regular season.

Does that give the Huskies an edge in this weekend’s tournament?

“Only in a sense that we know we’ve competed with everybody in the field, had success against everybody in the field, but we also know this is a brand-new season,” Coen said. “Tournament time is a different time of year. March brings out a different sense of urgency and intensity.

“Through 18 games, we’ve earned the right of the No. 1 seed, the bye in the tournament. Now we’re gonna have to play our best basketball of the year to advance further.”

Two more wins will get the surprising Huskies to the next big thing, the Big Dance, for the first time since 1991. And wouldn’t that be something to see?

Jack McCluskey is an editor for ESPN.com and a frequent contributor to ESPNBoston.com. Follow him on Twitter @jack_mccluskey.

All that stood between Harvard and a third straight Ivy League title was two weekends of games. With four Ancient Eight matchups left, two on the road and two at home, the Crimson were 9-1 in the conference and if they kept winning they would control their postseason destiny.

Then came Friday night at Princeton. The Crimson struggled mightily from the floor, shooting 0-for-8 from behind the arc and just 40 percent for the game in a 58-53 loss to the Tigers.

Asked Wednesday if he attributed the stumble to his young team (led by sophomore Wesley Saunders and freshman Siyani Chambers) pressing, Harvard coach Tommy Amaker demurred.

The Crimson just didn’t play well enough to win, while Ian Hummer and the Tigers did, he said.

“I thought the kid Hummer was on a mission and played like it,” Amaker said. “I thought he really inspired their team. He made every big, winning play.”

Hummer finished with 23 points and 14 rebounds, both game highs.

When Princeton needed a big shot, rebound or hustle play, Amaker said, Hummer was there.

The next night, needing to rebound from the setback at Princeton, the Crimson got blitzed by the Quakers.

“I thought Penn just played very aggressively against us, pressured us,” Amaker said. “We got down early in that game, battled all the way back and couldn’t get over the hump there late.”

After the 75-72 loss to Penn, all of a sudden Harvard found itself in second place in the Ivy standings (behind Princeton). And with just two games remaining, Amaker’s charges no longer control their own destiny.

Princeton, 16-9 overall and 9-2 in the conference, has three games left and if it wins out will win the Ivy. Harvard, 17-9 and 9-3 in the conference, has two games left and needs to win out and get help from Princeton’s opponents (the Tigers play at Yale, at Brown and at Penn) to win the Ivy.

Amaker is hoping one of the oddities of the Ivy schedule helps his team this week. His players will have had five days to lick their wounds, physically and mentally, and prepare for the next challenge by the time they tip off against Columbia at Lavietes Pavilion at 7 on Friday night.

Though the Lions are just 4-8 in the Ivy and 12-14 overall, the Crimson can’t afford to take them lightly. Amaker said Columbia probably played one of its best games of the season against Harvard the first time the teams met (a 78-63 Columbia win).

“Certainly they’re a team that’s confident against us, that feels they match up well with us,” he said. “They do a heck of a job breaking their opponents down off the bounce. We’re gonna have our hands full.”

Because of this past weekend’s missteps, there’s only so much the Crimson still hold in their hands.

Jack McCluskey is an editor for ESPN.com and a frequent contributor to ESPNBoston.com. Follow him on Twitter @jack_mccluskey.

NEWTON, Mass. -- Just when it seemed the game was getting away from them, facing a double-digit deficit against the conference’s top defensive team in Virginia, the Eagles refused to let it.

The hosts battled back, got within four on a Patrick Heckmann 3-pointer, then fell behind again. But they just wouldn’t quit.

They couldn’t -- they were playing for something bigger than the win.

Longtime Boston College media man Dick Kelley, who is battling ALS, was presented with the U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s Most Courageous award prior to the game. The team stood arrayed behind Kelley at half court as he received his trophy and posed for pictures, then gave him pats on the shoulder and hugs before jogging back to the bench.

A couple of hours later, after the Eagles pulled off an improbably 53-52 win, they talked about what that moment meant to them.

“It meant everything,” Joe Rahon said. “We talked about it before the game, that [Kelley] was getting honored tonight. Coach told us, he loves us. He loves us more than anyone here. So we didn’t have to go out there and win for him, but we were going to come out and play as hard as we possibly could for him today.”

So down eight with just less than five minutes to go, the Eagles didn’t panic. Ryan Anderson made a layup, Rahon hit a pair of free throws and Heckmann hit another from long range, off a handoff from Eddie Odio.

This time they were back in it to stay.

The score seesawed as the clock ticked down toward the final buzzer. With the Eagles down by 1 with less than 40 seconds to go, a rebound just eluded Anderson and as he tumbled to the ground, Virginia's Jontel Evans was able to edge him out for the bouncing bauble and the officials awarded Evans a timeout even though the ball seemed to be tied up.

That meant the Eagles would have to foul, and when Joe Harris caught the inbounds pass it seemed the controversial call might haunt BC. But Harris, fresh off an ACC-best 36-point output in the Cavs’ home upset of No. 3 Duke, hit only one of two free throws and gave the Eagles one last chance.

To convert on that final opportunity, down 52-50 with 20.6 seconds to go, would require a great deal of patience and trust.

The ball came inbounds and was worked around to Heckmann, who had hit several big shots to bring BC back to within punching distance. He came roaring off a pick and drove down the right side of the lane.

This is where the trust factor comes in.

“When Patrick did drive that ball, I think last year I probably would’ve called timeout because I would’ve said ‘I just don’t trust him,’” BC coach Steve Donahue said. “But I sensed like Joe did that, ‘You know what, I think he knows what he’s doing here. ‘”

The Eagles were running a play they practice every day, an “Alley drive skip pass,” and Rahon said he knew Heckmann would be OK.

“I had confidence in him,” he said. “I knew he’d find me.”

Heckmann drew the defense, executed a perfect jump stop, picked his head up and spotted Rahon open behind the arc. Rahon’s shot was true, swishing through the net as the referees’ whistles blew for a foul that could make it a four-point play.

The crowd exploded. The Eagles had come all the way back, against the ACC’s top defense (Virginia came in allowing just 57.7 points per game), and had a lead with 8.2 to go.

And even though Rahon’s free throw clanged off the rim, Heckmann was able to ride Evans out of bounds on the Cavs’ baseline without fouling and the Eagles escaped with a wild win on an emotional day in the Heights.

“I’m not sure how it all happened but I just appreciate these guys and their perseverance for such a young group,” Donahue said. “We had every reason to pack up our tents there when [the Cavaliers] went up 10.”

But the Eagles never quit, never stopped pushing and eventually prevailed in the pulse-pounding finish. How riveting were the closing moments of Sunday’s game? After Evans turned the ball over with 0.4 seconds to go, Rahon inbounded the ball to half court. Akil Mitchell caught the ball, the buzzer sounded and the big man let it fly.

The ball found nothing but net, and a stunned Mitchell (who scored a game-high 16) tumbled to the floor in disbelief.

“This game was for Dick Kelley and the stuff he’s done,” Donahue said. “What we’re doing is just kind of fun and games. I think all these guys are close to Dick. And if we’re going to go down, we’re going to go down fighting in his honor for sure.”

Jack McCluskey is an editor for ESPN.com and a frequent contributor to ESPNBoston.com. Follow him on Twitter @jack_mccluskey.

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. -- Late last year, the Providence Friars threw a wrench into Boston College's celebration plans, denying Eagles head coach Jerry York a record-setting 925th career victory by grabbing a last-second 3-3 tie on Dec. 7 against the then-No. 2 team in the nation. York and his Eagles would have to wait another three weeks to get his historic win.

Saturday night, the Friars (14-11-7; 12-7-6 Hockey East) were up to their old tricks again, bouncing back from Friday's 3-2 loss against the Eagles at home to capture a 5-1 victory at BC's Conte Forum, securing a weekend split and spoiling Senior Night for the Eagles seniors and a crowd of 7,884. The win allowed the Friars to keep pace with the No. 4 Eagles (19-10-3; 14-9-2 HE) in the race for the Hockey East regular-season crown, and prevented the Eagles from taking a two-point lead over idle UMass Lowell.

Meanwhile, New Hampshire took over the top spot in Hockey East, at least for 24 hours, after defeating UMass 4-0 and taking three of a possible four points from the Minutemen on the weekend.

"We wanted to answer back," said Providence coach Nate Leaman, referring to Friday's defeat. "We've been a pretty good road team here in the second half of the season, and that was the focus. We wanted to make sure we answered back after the tough loss last night. So, just like every game, it's just one game, and we wanted to make sure that we brought our best."

Holding a slim 1-0 lead entering the final period, the Friars scored the next four goals to win going away, snapping an 18-game winless streak against the Eagles (0-15-3 since February 2008). The loss drops BC from fourth in the national PairWise Rankings to ninth.

"I've had better Saturday afternoons," said York afterward. "I thought we played pretty solid hockey through two periods, and they just wore us down in the third period."

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When Boston College quarterback Chase Rettig takes the field to open spring practice today, he will be learning from his fourth offensive coordinator in as many seasons.

At least there will be some familiarity with Ryan Day, who was Boston College receivers coach from 2007-11, before leaving to join Steve Addazio at Temple in 2012. Day returned to BC when Addazio was hired, and both are now charged with trying to jump start the offense while easing their players into a new system.

Again.

Addazio said the staff plans on keeping as many alike principles and alike terms as they can. But even still, Rettig and his teammates have to learn an offense that will be different from the pro-style set the Eagles ran last season.

"The fact of the matter is I’ve talked to Chase and other guys about it, all these guys have ambitions to play at the next level, and that’s part of that, too. There’s a lot of turnover, there’s a lot of change," Addazio said in a recent phone interview. "A zone play is a zone play, and a quick game is pretty universal, protections are universal, six-man, five-man, seven-man protections are pretty universal.

"So it’s not too crazy. Sometimes it’s more formation, calls, that’s what it is more than anything else. How you’re reading coverages and progressions in the throw game. One thing here is our guys are very bright guys. And I think one thing we do very well here is pick things up pretty quickly."

Though Addazio has a history of running a spread-type offense, he insists he will not try to fit a round peg in a square hole -- and he wants to be able to establish the run first and foremost.

Whether the Eagles have the personnel to get that done right away remains to be seen, as they were not very good in that department last year. But they do have the luxury of returning an experienced quarterback who threw for over 3,000 yards last season with 17 touchdown passes.

So what does Addazio want to see out of Rettig this spring? Rather than discussing Xs and Os improvement, Addazio wants to see Rettig work on his leadership.

"Chase is a guy who throws the ball well, and that’s a positive," Addazio said. "That’s a piece, but the biggest piece is winning. At quarterback -- whether he’s a thrower, whether he’s a runner -- it’s kind of irrelevant. What’s relevant is he’s got it, and he’s got the ability to lead and find a way to win. What we’re working on right now is getting our seniors and getting our players at a position like quarterback, like Chase, to understand how important his leadership, his demeanor, his ability to drive a football team, how important that is.

"To me, the quarterback on offense, that’s huge. The linebacker on defense, those are the apexes of your team on both sides of the ball and those guys have got to have 'it.' Sometimes today, everybody gets tied into talking about this guy runs really well or this guy spins it really well. All those things are important but what’s really important is the ability to lead, the ability to win. Buying into that mindset is really critically important because we’re coming off two years that aren’t representative of what Boston College has been. We’ve got to make sure that we develop that kind of leadership."

BOSTON -- The Boston University Terriers have a pulse after all. Barely clinging to their top-20 ranking with a .500 record, the No. 19 Terriers put it all together Tuesday night to pin a 5-2 loss on No. 17 Merrimack at Agganis Arena.

"It was nice to get a W, it was nice to get a W at home, [and] it was nice to get some goals. I liked our team tonight. We had a lot of guys play well, obviously," said BU coach Jack Parker. "In general, it was a solid effort against a very, very good team."

The win completed a BU season sweep over the Warriors and allowed the Terriers (15-14-2, 12-9-2 Hockey East) to claw to within a point of Merrimack (14-12-6, 12-8-3 HE) in the Hockey East standings and within two points of Boston College, UMass Lowell, idle Providence and New Hampshire. Boston College had a chance to break the three-way tie for first place but lost to Lowell, 4-2, creating a four-way logjam atop the standings.

"[The clock] will strike midnight and it'll be the 27th tomorrow and we'll be one point out of first place with four [games] to go," said Merrimack coach Mark Dennehy afterward. "We got a day off, so we'll put this behind us and move on."

BU is the only Hockey East team that Merrimack has failed to pry a point from this season.

"I don't know that we've played great against BU yet this year. I think they've done a pretty good job against us," said Dennehy. "They've gotten a lot of easy goals against us, which we usually don't give up. And they're very difficult to score against. At least we've found it that way. Maybe we just bring out the best in them."

In a makeup game rescheduled due to the Feb. 9 blizzard, the two squads entered the night -- the 100th meeting all time between the teams -- deadlocked in the all-important Pairwise Rankings at No. 22. Since only 16 teams make the NCAA tourney field (including automatic bids for conference champs), the game was critical for both squads. But Parker's team, once ranked as high as No. 6, has been in a tailspin, losing two last weekend to No. 12 UMass Lowell and registering only three wins in 14 games since New Year's Day (3-9-2).

Conversely, Merrimack was 7-2-2 in its past 11 games and was atop Hockey East as recently as Sunday, when Boston College edged past the Warriors in overtime. But on Tuesday night, BU was the aggressor from the start and was the better squad throughout the game.

"We started out with a pretty good pace," said Parker. "I thought we really generated some offense down low, and some time of possession down low, too. That really gave us a big jump."

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With just two weekends left in the Ivy League season, Harvard’s Wesley Saunders has the surprising Crimson atop the standings.

After averaging 16.5 points and 7.0 rebounds in road wins over Brown and Yale this past weekend, Saunders earned a share of his fifth Ivy Player of the Week honor, the league announced on Monday. Saunders shared the award with Princeton’s Ian Hummer.

The Crimson sophomore leads the Ancient Eight in scoring with 16.7 points per game for the season, and is at 17.9 ppg during conference play.

On Friday night, Saunders had 19 points, 9 rebounds, 3 steals and 3 assists in a 65-47 win over Brown. On Saturday night, Saunders had 14 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists in a 72-66 win over Yale.

Saunders also landed a spot on the “SportsCenter” Top 10 plays reel Saturday night, for a one-handed dunk in the first half versus Yale.

The weekend sweep improved Harvard’s record to 17-7 overall and 9-1 in Ivy play, positioning Tommy Amaker’s young squad to make an unexpected run at the school’s second straight NCAA tournament berth. Before the season began, Harvard lost would-be co-captains Kyle Casey and Brandyn Curry to an academic cheating scandal that has embroiled the Cambridge campus.

But thanks in large part to the play of Saunders and to the scintillating emergence of freshman point guard Siyani Chambers, the drop-off from a season ago has been minimal and the Crimson are again making a run at the postseason.

Next up for the Crimson is a trip to second-place Princeton on Friday, and to fifth-place Penn on Saturday.

Jack McCluskey is an editor for ESPN.com and a frequent contributor to ESPNBoston.com. Follow him on Twitter @jack_mccluskey.

Boston College will be the first ACC team to open spring practice, one week from today. I had a chance to speak at length with new coach Steve Addazio about a wide variety of topics.

We covered so much ground, I present a few highlights here today. Stay tuned for more from Addazio when the Eagles put the pads on next week.

Now that you have been in place for three months, do you have a better idea of what you want to run schematically when you open spring ball?

SA: What I know right now is work ethic. What I know right now is attitude. I still don’t know that I know who’s capable of what on the football field, so you’ve got to get the pads on. No matter what we do, where we head, the starting point is going to be a two-back, one-back, zone-power counter concept, a real strong pro-style running game, play-action pass, nakeds. That’s going to be a starting point, no matter what direction we ultimately head. You head into Week 1, and you find out if you can rock off the ball, you find out the strength of your backs, you find out about your quarterbacks, your receivers in terms of your play-action passes. Then we’ll be able to tell after the first six practices or so how quickly we’ll migrate more of those shotgun, spread principles and how they’ll come into this offense.

You inherit a team coming off a 2-10 season. How do you deal with going about trying to change the mentality of a program that hasn’t seen its best days the past few years, especially when you have been a part of successful programs at your past few stops?

SA: At Temple, obviously Al (Golden) did a tremendous job of building that program so there was a built-in expectation level and we had to come in and find a way to take that expectation and exceed it, and we were able to do that. At Florida, we came into a similar situation, maybe not to the point of which there was a two, three or four-win team. But to Florida’s standards, it was very similar. Because Florida’s standards, six, seven, eight wins might as well have been two or three wins. I did have the experience of going into Indiana with Gerry DiNardo, which was a complete utter rebuild from every sense of the word, and then when I went to a high school program, and I had to build the thing from Ground Zero. I’ve got to rely on all those experiences together, but I will say this to you: There is a tremendous amount of pride here at Boston College, and rightfully so. This has been a very strong football program, consecutive bowl games that we had been to, eight of them. You talk about first-rounders, you talk about great players, rookies of the year, NFL players of the year, so, OK, we’ve had two down years. We haven’t had 20.

So there’s a lot of pride here and I think a tremendous willingness and buy-in to getting back, realizing we’ve got to do a great job recruiting. We’re working like crazy on that right now. I want to have a legitimate bona fide great recruiting year next year. We’ve got to restock our team. We have to redevelop that winning culture, that winning attitude. We’ve got to come in here, and we’ve got to shock everything right now and that’s what it’s all about. You walk into our building and you walk into that lobby and you’re just a couple years removed from some very good football teams and very good successes. This is not an instantaneous one, now. We’ve got to build this and it’s going to take a little bit of time. This is not just come in and let’s just get going, and turn this and twist that and bam we’re right in it. We’ve got some situations at quarterback where we have more drop-back mentality guys here. We have a depth problem at running back, and at wide receiver, so it’s a combination of things. It’s going to take some time. I want to build this thing the right way, with a great foundation, and get BC back to where BC was.

You mentioned Indiana and some of the other places you’ve been. How would you categorize this in terms of the type of rebuilding process you have ahead?

SA: That’s a good question. There’s similarities -- in a different way -- to Florida when we got there. Because Florida wasn’t where Florida wanted to be at that point in time, but Florida had come off some pretty successful years. Not that far removed from the Spurrier era. So there was a lot of pride. There’s a lot of pride here, whereas at Indiana it was a little bit more removed from the Bill Mallory era. It was a little further removed and it wasn’t as long lasting. Then when I was at Notre Dame, it probably wasn’t all that different, either. We were trying to reignite, re-recruit, restock a program that had success at a high level at one point. There’s similarities in all of them. Our kids here want to win, know they can win, know where this was, know what needs to be done. It’s not like we’re coming in here saying we have to learn how to win. Guys were here when this program was winning. Matt Ryan’s not that far removed. Luke Kuechly just walked out of here. Anthony Castonzo, those guys are not that far removed and they’re always around. I just feel like a sense of, we just have to dig our feet in right now, fight back real hard, give ourselves some time to restock and rebuild. But it’s around the corner, so to speak.

Along those lines, I’m going to ask you the dreaded timetable question. How long will it take before you get back to a bowl and contend for championships?

SA: We’ve got a real goal in front of us right now. The first thing we want to do is look at it like this: We want to win the opener, and then we’ve got to get bowl eligible. Now, I think you’re always looking at building consistency and working toward championships. The first thing we have to do is we’ve got to get back to a bowl.

I never believe in saying, ‘We can’t do this.’ The power of a team is so big when you bring that chemistry together. But we want to get bowl eligible immediately. That’s realistic, as opposed to me saying it’s going to take one year to do this and two years to do that. You just don’t know that. But I want to get bowl eligible right away and our team wants that, our program wants that and that’s where we’re headed right now.

BOSTON -- Success breeds success. In college hockey parlance, that translates to another Beanpot trophy for the "haves," as No. 4 Boston College pinned a 6-3 loss on Northeastern to capture its 18th city championship in the 61st edition of this storied event.

Some 48 years after BC coach Jerry York won his first Beanpot as an Eagle, and a week after he was inducted into the Beanpot Hall of Fame, his young charges did something no other BC squad had done before: win four straight Beanpots. And they did it with a mix of opportunistic offense, a bend-but-don't-break defense and the occasional spectacular save from senior goaltender Parker Milner before a raucous crowd at TD Garden, denying the Huskies (8-14-3) their first Beanpot trophy since 1988.

"They didn't win four Beanpots by themselves, this senior class," York said. "They had a lot of help."

That help came in the form of a deep squad, but notably super sophomore Johnny Gaudreau, who scored twice, and juniors Bill Arnold and Patrick Brown, who each tallied a goal.

But it was senior assistant Steve Whitney who got the eventual game-winner with 0.4 seconds left in the second period, and senior captain Pat Mullane who salted the game away for the Eagles (17-7-2) with an empty-net tally with 1:28 left in the contest.

"For our seniors, I think we're all excited," Whitney said. "This is awesome for us.

"Tonight, we got a lot of great efforts from every class," he said.

Still, Northeastern made the Eagles earn it. For the first time since 2004, a member of the losing team won the MVP, as freshman Kevin Roy followed his three-goal performance against Boston University in the opening round by scoring two goals to help keep the Huskies close. But close wasn't enough, especially after BC built a commanding 4-1 lead after two periods.

"I congratulate Boston College," Northeastern coach Jim Madigan said. "They played a great game and they're a great team, and they deserved to win tonight."

Instead of a Beanpot victory party, the Huskies had to take consolation in knowing that, except for a few ill-timed defensive lapses, they were able to skate with the Eagles.

"I told the guys I was proud of them, how they showed resolve and how they showed resiliency," Madigan said. "We've got a lot of hockey left, and we can still get back to this building [for the Hockey East playoffs] if we play like we did in the third period.

"Those are words that are hard to take when you've just lost a Beanpot, and I've sat there, and remember what it was like when Fernie [Flaman] was addressing me years ago. That's a tough one, but we'll get back at it."

Contrary to the typical Beanpot scoreline between the two squads, the scoreless first period featured Northeastern's relentless forechecking and tenacious defense (seven blocked shots) pitted against BC's unparalleled transition game. BC had the edge in offensive play, outshooting the Huskies 10-5, but NU senior goaltender Chris Rawlings looked calm and relaxed in stopping everything that came his way. The first clear goal-scoring bid came at 12:02, when BC's Arnold was sent in alone on Rawlings, but the junior's power-play bid clanked off the crossbar and into the netting.

The goalies stepped up to start the middle stanza, with BC's Milner (20 saves) robbing Garrett Vermeersch's snap shot from the low slot 90 seconds in, and Rawlings (24 saves) denying Kevin Hayes as the junior flashed across the Northeastern crease. At 3:48, BC's Isaac MacLeod beat Rawlings glove side, but his wrister glanced off the post.

BC's Mullane was the next to find iron, halfway through the second. After Gaudreau somehow dug the puck out of a crowd by the left half-wall and slipped a pass to Danny Linell, the sophomore fed Patrick Wey at the right point. Wey unleashed an uncontested slapper, and Mullane, stationed in front, deflected the puck over Rawlings' right shoulder and flush off the crossbar.

"Obviously, that's frustrating, but you can't let negativity creep in," Mullane said. "We knew if we pounded the net, they'd eventually go in."

The Eagles finally broke down Northeastern's defense at 10:53, with Arnold finishing off a classic give-and-go play. After BC's defense broke up another Huskies rush, Arnold collected the puck in the high slot and fed it to linemate Hayes. The junior from Dorcester dished it right back to Arnold, who immediately flicked it past Rawlings for a 1-0 BC lead.

Less than 80 seconds later, Gaudreau doubled the margin on a great individual effort. Spinning off NU's Dax Lauwers behind the Huskies' net, Gaudreau scooped up the puck and drove on Rawlings, jamming it home for an unassisted tally at 12:08.

Roy halved the lead at 15:04. Breaking down the left wing, he toe-dragged the puck toward the shot as several players charged the net, then snapped a shot that appeared to handcuff Milner, breaking through the BC senior and into the net.

"He's a highly offensive, intelligent skilled player that, around the net, is very dangerous," Madigan said. "He creates his shot as well as anyone."

Milner made amends at 16:50, making a sprawling glove save on Roy after the Quebec native broke in alone on the BC net. Roy went to his backhand, but Milner read the move perfectly and made the stop.

"It was definitely a turning point of that game," Roy said.

The Eagles stretched their lead to 3-1 at 18:37. Patrick Brown, stationed by the left hash marks, redirected MacLeod's shot from the left point, and the bouncing puck eluded Rawlings, rolling on edge just over the goal line.

But the true backbreaker came with less than a second remaining in the period. Rawlings, playing a soft dump, actually swept the puck away from teammate Colton Saucerman. BC's Arnold jumped on the loose puck, and though he was tied up, managed to flick it back to Whitney. The senior from Reading took a shot, collected his own rebound and shoveled it past Rawlings with 0.4 seconds on the clock to give the Eagles a comfortable 4-1 margin going into the break.

But the Huskies refused to roll over. Just 11 seconds into the third, Roy struck again, firing a dart from the left wing that beat Milner cleanly over the blocker, cutting the BC lead to 4-2.

"When he's got the puck on his stick, good things are going to happen," Madigan said. "That's what happened. Bang, right off in the third period, he knew we needed a jump and a lift, and that's what he created. Now we've got some momentum."

At 3:56, the Huskies clawed to within one, when captain Vinny Saponari's shot from above the left faceoff dot ricocheted off teammate Braden Pimm and past Milner. It was the first Northeastern goal scored in this year's Beanpot by a player other than Roy.

"We believed in our chances between the second and the third, we wanted to go out and score an early goal to get some energy, and I thought we did, and were really close to getting back," Roy said. "At 4-3, we had a lot of opportunities.

"We really came back hard in the third, but it just didn't happen," he said.

The reason was Milner, who after the game acknowledged that he wanted to make up for what he felt were two soft goals. He bounced back again after Pimm's tally, stuffing Vermeersch's breakaway bid with his blocker at 9:41, and preserving BC's suddenly slim one-goal lead. A minute later, the senior netminder from Pittsburgh poke-checked the puck off Roy's stick at the top of the crease.

Stellar BC freshman defender Michael Matheson helped put the game out of reach at 14:37, with a nifty drive to the net before he dished a perfect pass to Gaudreau, who buried it for his second goal of the night (and 15th of the season) for a 5-3 Eagles lead.

"That play Mike Matheson made on Johnny Gaudreau's second goal, that was something special," York said.

Milner followed up with a big right pad save off a Saucerman blast, which led to Mullane skating in alone on an empty NU cage. The senior captain calmly buried the puck, giving he and his classmates their fourth straight Beanpot.

"It's a testament to our coaches, and the culture we've bred here," said BC's Wey, another Pittsburgh native who said it didn't take long to realize how important the Beanpot was to the city, and to each team.

York likened the Beanpot to the PGA Tour, in which golfers want to win major tournaments, whether they come early in the season or later. With the 2013 Beanpot tucked away in the BC trophy case, York said his team will now concentrate on the Hockey East championship. But they'll take time to cherish this historic four-peat.

"It's a great credit to our team because I have the utmost respect for Harvard, Boston University and Northeastern," York said. "Each step helps you in the long run."

Brion O'Connor covers college hockey for ESPNBoston.com.

BOSTON -- Boston College withstood a rally from Northeastern and beat the Huskies 6-3 to secure its fourth consecutive Beanpot championship.

Northeastern, which scored two straight goals to pull within 4-3 early in the third period, failed in its bid for the school's first Beanpot title since 1988.

Johnny Gaudreau scored twice for the Eagles, including a goal with 5:15 to play that gave BC a 5-3 lead. Pat Whitney added an empty-netter to cap the scoring.

Kevin Roy scored twice for Northeastern after registering a hat trick against Boston University in the first round. Roy was named the tournament's most valuable player.

The title is BC's 18th in the 61-year tournament's history.

BOSTON -- Boston University fans have to wonder where the road leads from here, after the No. 13 Terriers finished dead last in the Beanpot tournament -- an event some have called the BU Invitational because of the school's 29 crowns -- for the second time in two years.

In 2011, the Terriers dropped both Beanpot contests for the first time since 1980, losing to Harvard in the consolation game, 5-4. The fallout was severe, as Jack Parker's squad missed the NCAA tournament at season's end.

On Monday, the Terriers (13-12-1) again came up short against the Crimson (6-15-2), squandering an early two-goal lead and dropping a 7-4 decision in the Beanpot consolation game. Harvard, led by Luke Greiner's hat trick and two goals by Marshall Everson, ended a nine-game winless streak.

Winless in their three games prior to Monday, the Terriers jumped out to a 2-0 lead, including a goal at 3:12 by Mike Moran that appeared to expose some Beanpot jitters by Harvard freshman goalie Peter Traber. However, Traber settled down after BU captain Wade Megan lit the lamp with a shorthand strike at 11:45, surrendering only two more goals and finishing the night with 43 saves.

Harvard came back to knot the game before the end of the first on even-strength markers by Dan Ford at the 13-minute mark and captain Danny Biega with only 15 seconds left in the stanza.

With Harvard's Colin Blackwell in the box for a high-sticking call to start the second period, BU surged to a 3-2 lead on a bomb by Evan Rodriguez at 1:38. After that, however, the Terriers stopped playing defense, and the Crimson jumped out front 4-3 on goals 71 seconds apart by Everson (3:19) and Greiner (4:32), both scored from the low slot.

Greiner got goal No. 2 on the night on a power-play tally at 16:33, and the Crimson looked to be cruising. Everson stretched Harvard's lead to 6-3 at 3:13 of the third with his second of the game, and seventh of the season.

BU's Cason Hohmann pulled the Terriers back to 6-4, after Sahir Gill drove hard to the Harvard net, drawing a crowd. The puck squirted loose to the right of Traber, and Hohmann tucked it home at 11:24.

Desperate for offense, Parker pulled BU netminder Sean Maguire (24 saves) with about minute to go, but Traber made a point-blank stop on Sean Escobedo at the doorstep with 33 seconds left to blunt any hopes of a Terrier comeback.

In a play that epitomized BU's night, Greiner picked the puck off Megan's stick at the BU blue line, and with the Terriers captain lying prone on the ice, slid it into the empty net with 8.6 seconds left to finish off his hat trick and the 7-4 scoreline. He may have ended BU's postseason hopes in the process.

Brion O'Connor covers college hockey for ESPNBoston.com.

While the 61st Beanpot hockey championship is about to be decided, college baseball fans can look forward to the 2013 Baseball Beanpot at Fenway Park on April 29.

Teams from Boston College, Harvard University, Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst will participate. The consolation game is at 2 p.m., followed by the Beanpot championship game at 5 p.m.

Tickets, at $10, go on sale today at noon at redsox.com/beanpot or by phone at (877) REDSOX-9. Proceeds will benefit the Pete Frates Fund, named after the former captain of the BC baseball team who was diagnosed with ALS. Frates, a former outfielder, lives in Beverly, Mass.

BOSTON -- The final of the 61st Beanpot shapes up as a study in contrasts. For one Beanpot finalist, Monday's championship game is a tale of hope and redemption. For the other, it is another date in a long-running performance of sustained excellence.

Northeastern will be looking for its first Beanpot trophy in a quarter century, last won in 1988, before any of the current players on the Huskies' roster were born. Conversely, the Boston College Eagles are hoping to bring the trophy back to the The Heights for the fourth straight year, a feat never accomplished in the program's storied history.

Still, make no mistake -- despite the differences in their results from recent Beanpot tournaments, the players from Northeastern (8-13-3) and Boston College (16-7-2) know each other quite well.

For starters, the teams already have met three times this season, with the Huskies spoiling the Eagles' season-opener with a 3-1 win at Matthews Arena. BC responded the way they typically do, knocking off the Huntington Hounds a week later, 3-0, then routing coach Jim Madigan's club, 9-3, on Jan. 19. In that last contest, the squads were tied, 3-3, after the first period, but the Eagles ran away with 6 unanswered goals, chasing goaltender Chris Rawlings after the second period as he surrendered 6 goals on 16 shots.

The Eagles and Huskies also have recent Beanpot clashes, with BC coming out on top in each of the past two years. Last year, the Eagles bounced the Hounds in the opening round, 7-1. Two seasons ago, the teams locked horns in an epic final, with the Eagles getting the last laugh, winning 7-6 in overtime.

"They've beaten BU, which I think is a very, very good club, twice now, so that takes notice," BC coach Jerry York said last Monday after the Huskies tripped up the Terriers, 3-2, in the Beanpot opener.

Reality is that Northeastern, despite currently sitting in last place in Hockey East, has reached three of the last five Beanpot championship games (2009, 2011 and 2013). However, Madigan wants to make sure his players, and the Northeastern campus, keep perspective.

"We haven't won anything yet," Madigan said Friday. "We've put ourselves in position to win the championship game on Monday night, to compete for the championship, and that's what we're going to do. But we've got a monumental task in front of us, against a very good Boston College team. And we'll be ready to play."

If past history is any indicator, fans should expect fireworks inside TD Garden on Monday night. The schools have never combined to score fewer than 9 goals in a title bout. In 1980, Wayne "Beanpot" Turner got the overtime winner to give the Huskies their first Beanpot crown, 5-4. In 1983, BC prevailed, 8-2. And then there was the thrilling 2011 final, won by BC's Jimmy Hayes in overtime, 7-6. This year's edition of the Eagles has the same kind of firepower, which is a serious concern for Madigan.

"They're a very skilled and intelligent hockey club, from the forwards right through the defensemen and their goaltender," NU's second-year bench boss said. "So when you play a team that skilled and that intelligent, you've got to prepare. They think quick, they play the game fast. They react fast. They're always putting pressure on you, so that puts a lot of demands on our players. They're very good at transition. Offensively, they create quickly, but their transition game is extremely well-tuned, and they transition pucks quickly, and it creates offense for them right away. A lot of teams don't transition pucks quickly. They do. And within two passes, they're in on your goal. So their transition game really is as good as it gets."

Sound familiar? It should. Consider Boston University coach Jack Parker's comments prior to the 2012 final. "Against Boston College you really have to try to outwork them," Parker said. "You've got to be real good with the puck because they're a terrific transition team, so you've got to make sure you don't turn the puck over at either blue line to give them opportunities."

Plus, the Eagles are deep, with nine players registering 10 points or more. And even the role players are contributing, such as Quinn Smith's 2 goals against Harvard in BC's 4-1 opening-round win. If not for the acrobatics of Harvard netminder Raphael Girard (42 saves), the Eagles could have doubled their production last Monday.

"You need a whole realm of players," York said after that victory. "For every power-play player, you need someone who is going to kill penalties and block shots. The third and fourth lines in college -- and the pros are the same way -- you can talk about your top six, but the bottom six has to be very, very effective or you're not going to win a lot of hockey games."

That's a key reason why the Eagles have been successful not only on the national stage, winning three of the past five national championships, but also at the Beanpot, where they are gunning for a fourth straight crown.

"They've got some skill forwards who are really good around the net," Madigan said. "They've got two lines who can really score, but they've got balance through four lines, having changed their lineup a little bit. So that concerns us also. So you've got intelligence, you've got skill, you've got good transition, you've got smart offensive players. And the last thing is, they're battle-tested. They've been in big games, they know how to win big games. They're poised. They're calm. You don't rattle a Boston College club."

York, however, isn't taking the Huskies lightly. Northeastern is a team that's starting to put all the pieces together, he said, led by an explosive group of forwards -- with freshman Kevin Roy atop the Huskies' scoring list -- and senior Rawlings in net.

"Their club seems to be improving," York said. "Jim's been there for two years, and he's probably got a real good pulse of coaching in Hockey East. Their special teams, they did a terrific job on the penalty kill against BU last Monday night. (The Terriers went 0-for-6 with the man advantage.) That will be a factor. Trying to solve their penalty killing, and Rawlings is certainly a big part of that. And of course they have some electric players up front."

Roy has been a revelation, the leading freshman scorer in the nation with 15 goals and 15 assists for 30 points. Madigan said the 19-year-old from Quebec has benefited from playing with gifted upperclassmen, including Vinny Saponari, Cody Ferriero, Braden Pimm and Garrett Vermeesch (Northeastern's top scorers after Roy).

"There's no doubt we're young at the back, on the blue line," Madigan said, noting his top six defenders last Monday included three freshmen and three sophomores. "But at this time of the year, they've played 25 games, they should be a little more battle-tested. If there's one area we have to keep getting better at, it's our defensive play. That's not just our defensemen. It's our goalies, our defensemen and the forwards. We give the opposition too much defensive zone time by not getting pucks out, by not pressuring defensively."

Meanwhile, Rawlings has been something of an enigma over his four years on Huntington Avenue. Clearly a top-flight talent, he's gone through stretches when he looks unfocused. That wasn't the case last Monday, when he stonewalled Boston University.

"I thought he played with a lot of confidence early in that game, and his confidence spilled over to our team really quickly," Madigan said. "He was making nice saves. That was a big win for our club, and Chris had a big part of it because of the confidence that he displayed."

For the record, BC holds a 32-9 edge over Northeastern in Beanpot competition. However, both coaches are concentrating solely on Monday's final. York, in particular, said his squad hasn't been spoiled by success.

"(Captain) Pat Mullane, and the whole senior class, has been a factor," he said. "Pat, along with his assistants Stevie Whitney and Pat Wey, they want to be good. There's an inner drive to those types of players. Their competitiveness, they want to be as good as they possibly can be. They push me every day to make that happen. As coaches we have to be on our toes, we've got to be ready for every practice, ready for every game, because they want an awful lot. There's absolutely no complacency that I can detect on my club."

"Any of the teams we play in a Beanpot final, it's a big opportunity for both clubs to pursue a trophy," York said. "I know it's just February, but it's an important trophy for the city of Boston and the teams involved. We're excited to play Northeastern."

Madigan said his players "had a real good businesslike focus and mentality" against BU, and they'll need the same intensity in the championship game.

"The mindset was great the last couple of days," he said. "I've been a part of this tournament for a long time, and I've heard all the facts and figures about what Northeastern's record has been the last 15 (times) since we beat BU." NU lost its previous 15 Beanpot matchups with the Terriers before last week's win.

"At the end of the day, facts and figures don't win games," Madigan said. "It's will, and our guys really go out there to compete."

Brion O'Connor covers college hockey for ESPNBoston.com.

As far as debuts go, you can't get much better than former King Philip ace and Wrentham native Meghan Rico.

In 2010, after a late-season injury to their star pitcher, then-sophomore Rico took over the reigns of the staff and led the Warriors to the first of back-to-back state titles.

Yeterday in Buies Creek, N.C., at the Hampton Inn Invitational on the campus of Campbell University, Rico tossed a no-hitter in her freshman debut for George Washington University. Rico walked four and struck out six, as the Colonials mercy-ruled Seton Hall, 8-0, in five innings.

She is the first GW rookie to throw a no-hitter, and is just the third pitcher in program history to achieve the feat.

Rico earned ESPNBoston.com's inaugural Miss Softball honor, awarded to the state's top overall player, in 2011 as a junior. That year, she led the Warriors to the second straight MIAA Division 1 state title, 21-0 with a minuscule ERA of 0.15. She allowed just 29 hits over 144 innings thrown with 313 strikeouts, 24 walks, two perfect games and just three earned runs. Last spring, she went 17-3 on the mound, striking out 274 in 142 innings thrown while surrendering just 10 earned runs all season.