E-Mail This Article to a Friend Crash! Boom! Splat! New England teams take a hit BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

Okay, we’ve had it so good for so long around here that things were bound to turn around sooner or later. We don’t need to rehash all of the blessed events that have transformed New England’s sporting landscape from woe-is-me to how-great-is-this?; fans around here were feeling pretty good about themselves and their teams despite the labor dispute that wiped out the NHL season, and the successes of the local college-hockey programs (along with the revitalization of the Celtics and BC hoops programs) made for a satisfying post–Super Bowl XXXIX period.

Yep, there we were, lying in the metaphorical hammock with a cool drink and the game on, swinging and awaiting news of the latest New England sports conquest — thereby bestowing our region with even more accolades about which to pound our chests.

Then — whoomp! Somebody chopped down the tree to which our hammock was tied, and within a fortnight, all we had left were the memories of the good times. Yep, we were due, but what a blizzard of bad news on the doorstep.

Did you miss it? Well, perhaps the bad stuff was initially put into motion with Boston Globe hoops columnist Peter May’s March 14 column ("Close the book, Atlantic race is history"), which all but handed the Celtics the divisional crown with 19 games remaining. At the time, May stated that Boston’s four-game lead in the Atlantic was safe because of the team’s rejuvenated play (the C’s were in the midst of a seven-game win streak) and the remaining-schedule disparity between the Celtics and their nearest (fading) rival, the 76ers. The divisional lead got up to five-and-a-half games as recently as March 23, but things have taken a turn for the worse in the past week, and the Green have dropped three straight and allowed the suddenly-hot Sixers to whittle three games off the Boston’s lead in the Atlantic. That race is significant, because it could mean the difference between a three seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs and an eight. "Close the book," Mr. May? Antoine Walker’s return has without question made the Celtics better, but a 25-point blowout to the 29-39 Knicks, an eight-point loss at home to the Bulls, and a hard-fought overtime loss in Detroit on Saturday has let Philly, riding its own three-game win streak, right back into the race.

Fine. That’s not so bad, though, considering that the Celts are still in first and do indeed have a favorable schedule down the stretch. Either way, they’ll likely make the playoffs.

But suddenly, the C’s are all that’s left on the local sports landscape, at least until the You-Know-Whos begin play for real on Sunday in the Bronx. Let’s take a look at the other dismal developments that have plagued the region’s teams.

BC had jumped out to a 20-0 record in the Big East, and the Eagle hoopsters got as high as number-three in national hoops polls. Sure, they really weren’t that good, but were definitely playing well and threatened to make some noise in the NCAA tournament. Yet down the homestretch of the regular season, BC lost four of its final eight, and its 24-4 mark was good for only a four seed; after a 20-point pasting of Penn in the opening round, the Eagles played as if they had never seen a press before, falling to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee — a 12 seed — 83-75 under the avalanche of 22 turnovers. In the Austin regional, the Cinderella story of the University of Vermont's Catamounts ended the next day at the hands of Final Four-bound Michigan State. And in the same week, Holy Cross dropped a second-round NIT decision to St. Joseph’s, while Boston University lost to Georgetown in the a first-round tilt by 30 (and Northeastern fell to Memphis by 25). Gulp.

Well, there was always defending NCAA men’s champ UConn, right? As a two seed, it was playing its second-round match-up but an hour from home (in Worcester) against a 10th seed, NC State. Surely they’d salvage some hoop pride for New England. Wrong again, twine-breath. The Huskies never showed the fire that had been the hallmark of a Jim Calhoun–coached team, and lost to the Wolfpack in the final minute. (And the last remaining hope, Rhode Island’s Bryant College, got all the way to the NCAA Division II finals, only to fall to Virginia Union on Saturday.)

In one fell swoop, down like Frazier went the hopes of all the region’s men’s hoopsters, despite top-notch seasons and high hopes.

All right, the men were down and out, but the womenfolk remained a presence. Not for long, though.

The BC Eagles dropped a tough second-round NCAA decision to Duke, while the Crusaders of Holy Cross made a quick first-round exit in a 40-point loss to second-seeded Ohio State (Dartmouth and the University of Hartford also departed the tournament In the opening round). Again, one would have thought that one could count on the other defending national hoops champ from this region — the UConn Huskies — to carry the torch, but Geno Auriemma’s inexperienced squad fell in the regional finals on Sunday to Stanford, thereby ending any hopes for a New England basketball representative to extend its post-season run.

Tsk, tsk. Well, it’s not like our six-state area was ever mentioned regularly in the same breath as the North Carolinas, Dukes, and Kentuckys of the hoops world.

But hockey. Now that’s where we’ve got ’em right where we want ’em. After all, the foundation of the 1980 US Olympic hockey team was built on local icemen, and lately BC, BU, Harvard (and even their regional compadres, New Hampshire, Dartmouth, and Maine) have been regular visitors to the post-season and even the Frozen Four.

Let’s take the men first. This past weekend’s 16-team regionals saw five New England teams qualify, yet only BC and UNH advanced to the second round. Alas, BC got smoked, 6-3, by a red-hot North Dakota team on Saturday night, and the New Hamsters fought valiantly for the last remaining Frozen-Four berth on Sunday before falling to the University of Denver, 4-2. That meant that instead of two or three Hockey East squads fighting for the first men’s hockey crown out of this region since BC won its first hockey title since 1949 four years ago, all four remaining contenders for the collegiate title (Minnesota, North Dakota, Denver, and defending-champ Colorado College) come from the same conference — the WCHA. It’s the first time since 1992 that the Frozen Four has not had a representative from these parts. Sacre bleu.

Okay, that’s unfortunate, and most unusual, that no men’s teams from the US’s hockey hotbed are still alive and slashing. How about the women? They’re some hockey powerhouses on the distaff side from New England . . . how’d they do?

Not so well, unfortunately. When the eight-team regionals began 10 days ago, three teams from around here — Providence, Harvard, and Dartmouth — qualified, but only the latter pair advanced to the women’s Frozen Four. Harvard actually made it all the way to Sunday’s championship game, but for the fifth straight season, a team from the Gopher State won the title, as Minnesota struck for a late goal to upend the Crimson, 4-3. Groundhog’s Day, indeed.

(It’s worth noting, however, that both the men’s and women’s hockey teams from Middlebury College in Vermont won their respective Division III championships — on the same day — Saturday — so for now, those Green Mountaineers are one of us.)

Phew. We shouldn’t complain about things given the big picture around here lately, but the sports gods apparently decided that fans of New England’s major sports programs had partied enough for one three-year period, and enough was enough. Let somebody else have some fun.

Fine. But it sure doesn’t seem like spring when there’s no controversy in the Red Sox camp coming out of Fort Myers, there’s nobody east of St. Paul still playing hockey, there’s no Big East team in either of college basketball’s final four (and wickedly, Rick Pitino’s found his way back), and the Celtics are in the hunt for a divisional title.

Losing. A foreign concept, but one that is creeping its way back into our vernacular for the first time, in a long, long time.

Let’s not get used to it.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com, and Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com