Boston College visits V.Tech in hoops

After two very nice, very game wins, our Hokies are in the middle of a three game home-stand vs. Boston College. That’s a BC team that has won exactly one game since the middle of January; or is in other words…slumped. But BC is 1 game above .500, and therefore does still entertain some NIT or CBI hopes. But who will win?

Boston College has the look and feel of a wounded animal to moi. They have been close but no cigar in their last four L’s, playing within 10 in all four, and within 5 points in three of those four. Ergo, BC is close to breaking through or close to shorting out, as life on the edge cuts both ways. So lets take a look at some Flying Eagle pros and cons to see what’s what.

  • BC is 7th in D-1 in Blocked shots.
  • BC is a fine shooting team, 63rd from the Floor, and 69th from downtown say so; as does being 51st in Assists, which suggests more easy baskets than on the norm.
  • Oddly enough, BC only has three national rankings that are below average, for only being one game above .500.
  • BC is healthy.

So we know what’s right about BC, but we still don’t know what’s wrong. My knee Rx was that it would be a matter of health, but that’s not it. So I dug a little deeper for TSL and found the generalized same reoccurring theme in several Boston Globe articles. In short, BC has been a victim of lack of self-concentration; whereby Flying-Eagle performance lapses, and the given BC opponent goes on a game changing or game winning run that BC can not fully respond to. Recall our closing second-half run, and subsequent winning OT run. Further, BC has been lagging at times in second-chance points all year.

That speaks to lack of focus or attention in my book, because there is talent up on Chestnut Hill. But this is indeed a byproduct of so many Flying Eagle departures last from last year. The ACC hoops cognoscenti will have you believe that stopping Ty Rice (the truculent #4 on the right), is the key to beating BC. Rice does score 200% more than anyone else on BC’s hoops team, he is ranked in the top 58 in three different major offensive categories in D-1. But the returning Commonwealth (Richmond) native is a raw scorer, and he is likely to get his. But the next five best Flying-Eagles are all underclassmen. Which rather adroitly explains the aforementioned lapses that BC is so circumspect to this season.

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Test

So right about now would be a great time for a very “LOUD” Cassell Colisieum to greet said BC Underclassmen. Ty Rice will be in town to put on a Commonwealth show, but shutting down his adolescent running mates would go a long way to securing our 17th win. Now that typed, our Defensive FG% allowed is up by a whopping 10% in our last five games compared to our seasonal average. If we do not remedy that right away, we will not sweep this home-stand, and you may “book that”. BC also has a little payback on their minds, that pushes this one to a proverbial coin-toss even. Virginia Tech 71 Boston College 70. b’street

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