BC struggles to win
Surprised Eagles find Hokies no pushovers
Trap game. Seat-squirmer. Wake-up call.
You name it.
Boston College's 56-48 Big East victory last night over the downtrodden Virginia Tech Hokies ranked as all of the above.
Brimming with confidence after picking up their 18th win in a 32-point blowout of Rutgers Sunday afternoon, 76-44, the Eagles mistakenly thought they could show up against Tech, go through the motions, and simply name the score for win No. 19.
By halftime, though, it was evident that was not going to be the case when the Hokies took a 25-20 lead after forcing the Eagles to commit 12 turnovers, limiting them to 8-for-18 shooting.
BC overcame one of its worst halves of the season -- matched only by the 20-point stinkbomb in the first half of a 72-62 loss at Clemson Dec. 30 -- to mount a decisive 17-0 run in the second half that enabled the Eagles (19-8, 8-6) to avoid embarrassment before a fidgety Conte Forum crowd of 4,624.
BC coach Al Skinner sensed his team was setting itself up for a letdown when he walked into the locker room. "For the first time there was a little giddiness," he said.
The Eagles carried that lackadaisical attitude onto the floor for pregame warmups.
"Guys were happy, especially in the layup line," said BC sophomore Craig Smith (11 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists), who combined with freshman Jared Dudley (team-high 14 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, 4 turnovers) to score the first 11 points of BC's 17-0 run. "You could tell guys were thinking, `Yeah, we're gonna beat 'em. It's our night to win.' And those guys came in very determined -- and almost knocked us off."
The Hokies (11-13, 4-9), who entered the game with a 1-5 conference road record, didn't appear to pose much of a threat at the outset, especially when they managed to score just 2 points after the first 6:55 on 1-for-9 shooting. But Tech intensified its defensive effort and rallied for 12 straight points to take a 16-12 lead on a fast-break dunk by Bryant Matthews, who had a game-high 21 points on 9-for-12 shooting.
If anyone personified the Eagles' struggle, it was sophomore guard Louis Hinnant. In the first half, he went 0 for 2, hoisting two of the worst treys he's ever attempted.
"Shot the ball terrible," he said. "The first one hit the top of the backboard. The second one I missed it left -- way off to the left. But the guys just told me to keep shooting, and I did."
Hinnant, though, atoned for his first-half mistakes by scoring a season-high 12 points, knocking down all four shots he attempted from the arc in the second half. His first three kept the Eagles in the game in the first 6:37. After Hinnant's third trey pulled BC within 35-33, the Hokies stretched their lead to 40-35.
But the Eagles responded by stepping up their defensive intensity, which helped fuel a 17-0 run that was abetted by a 9:12 Tech drought.
Smith scored 7 in a row, scoring the tying basket on a free throw that made it 40-40 and a foul-inducing jump hook that gave the Eagles the lead for good, 42-40, with 5:20 to go. BC stretched its lead to 50-40, which wound up serving as a nice buffer after Matthews hit back-to-back treys to pull the Hokies within 50-46 with 34.8 seconds left.
The Eagles, who remained within reach of the league's No. 4 seed and a coveted first-round bye in the Big East tournament at Madison Square Garden March 10-13, will take a week off before hosting St. John's in their home finale Wednesday night.
"This team is not nearly talented enough to just show up and play," Hinnant said. "We don't have those types of guys on this team. We're a knuckle-up team and we have to come in and play defense and try to get easy buckets, feed our post men and feed off that.
"After the last couple of wins we had, especially with the big win [against] Rutgers, we started to smell ourselves a bit and think we were better than we really are. I'm glad we were able to come back in the second half and stay level-headed and not stay big-headed as we were in the first half." 