Greg Cronin is ready to collect.

“If I had a dollar for every time somebody asked me when we were going to win the Beanpot, my pockets would be sticking out to here,” said Cronin, Northeastern’s fourth-year coach who is answering yet another round of Beanpot questions.

Some of Northeastern's seniors, like Joe Vitale, have only won one Beanpot game in their careers so far, but have a chance to win the school's first title since 1988 over the next two weeks.

The title drought turns 21 this year, fitting because it’s likely some of the Huskies’ losses have driven many to drink. Last year’s first-round defeat to Harvard was especially damning for Northeastern, which had its best group heading into February in years. But Harvard scored three goals in the game’s first 7:02 and coasted to a 3-1 victory.

“When we lost to Harvard, I remember walking to work [the next] day,” Cronin said. “I walked from my apartment on Comm. Ave. down to St. Botolph Street. I’ll never forget. It was a rainy day, a Tuesday morning. What people don’t see, the mass of alumni that Northeastern has is so huge. I got e-mails from people that were extremely disappointed. I was more disappointed than anybody. I thought we had a real flat game, and Harvard deserved to win it. But that was the first time I actually realized, ‘Wow, there’s a lot of pressure to win this tournament.’ I’m an adult. I’m 45 years old. I can handle it, but Peter Roby is our athletic director, and he came down to talk to the team after the game because the weight of that tournament finally sunk in after that loss.”

Northeastern went on to blow a 4-2 lead and fall to Boston University, 5-4, in the consolation game. Cronin’s Beanpot record dropped to 1-5, and he’s 0-3 on the opening Monday.

But Cronin isn’t alone in Northeastern’s recent Beanpot misery. Since the Huskies took their last title in 1988 (seven players on the current team hadn’t even been born yet), Boston University has claimed 14 championships to Boston College’s four and Harvard’s two. Northeastern, meanwhile is 11-29 since winning its last title. The Huskies are 4-16 in the first round, 7-9 in the consolation round (read: nine last-place finishes, which is actually less than Harvard’s 10 during that span) and 0-4 in title games. To take that one step further, 10 of their 11 wins in the last 20 years have come against Harvard, and they haven’t beaten anyone other than the Crimson since taking down Boston College in the 1993 consolation game. That’s not the best omen, considering Northeastern opens with BC on Monday night.

When asked if the drought can be used as a motivational tool, Cronin said, “It has to be. There’s no other way to look at it. The Beanpot is its own little animal, and it’s a psychological animal.”

With that, Cronin believes his team might have been a victim of its own success heading into last year’s tournament. The Huskies were flying through the first half and couldn’t escape these same questions about the drought because they became such a grassroots favorite to win the Beanpot. However, they weren’t far removed from a four-game winless stretch (0-3-1) and may not have been able to handle that psychological effect.

Cronin said his players need to manage their emotions better than they did last year, when they were way too fired up heading into the Harvard game. Eventually, as Cronin continues to build Northeastern into a program of national prominence, these are the types of things the Huskies will begin to accomplish. If it doesn’t happen during the Beanpot, it’ll have to take place in the postseason.

“It doesn’t really matter what happens October, November, December, January,” Cronin said. “The Beanpot is its own little identity. Managing that is the key to winning the tournament. Clearly, BU has done a good job managing it, whatever it is, 28 times, and BC recently has done a terrific job managing it as well. We’re kind of like the new kids on the block in terms of having that credibility going into it. I wish [the players] just handled it the way they’ve handled the other games we’ve played. One of the things that’s nice is we’ve got six seniors, and they’ve all gone through their own adversities. They’ve got to harness that maturity they’ve achieved and play a real smart game on Monday.”