Bold Eagles soar

NEW YORK -- Uka Agbai did not want there to be any misunderstanding.

When the Boston College senior captain walked out of the huddle with 6.1 seconds left in yesterday's 57-54 victory over Syracuse, Agbai threw a long arm around the well-muscled shoulders of sophomore Craig Smith, drew him close, and made certain they knew what they needed to do on BC's final defensive stand.

"Listen," Agbai told Smith, "you and I are the biggest guys on the floor right now. Let's box the hell out of 'em and get this rebound."

Smith, who finished off a pair of brilliant Agbai stops on Syracuse's Hakim Warrick with two huge defensive rebounds that put him on the foul line in the final 20 seconds, nodded in agreement.

"We knew it was going to be, obviously, a long shot, so it was obviously going to be a long rebound," said Smith, who led the fifth-seeded Eagles (23-8) with 22 points and 10 rebounds, his second double-double in the Big East Tournament after getting 16 and 14 in a 68-57 first-round win over 12th-seeded Georgetown.

"We just wanted to secure it."

Gerry McNamara, who led the 19th-ranked Orangemen (21-7) with 15 points on 5-for-11 shooting (4 of 7 from 3-point range), pushed the ball across midcourt and let fly an NBA-range trey that bounced high off the back of the rim. Warrick tried to go over the top of several BC defenders to tap it in, but failed as the buzzer sounded, triggering a BC celebration.

Looking to duplicate the feat of BC's fifth-seeded women's squad, which captured its first Big East Tournament title by winning four games in four days in Hartford, the Eagles yesterday drew one step closer to their own title chase by earning their sixth appearance in the semifinals, where they will face top-seeded Pittsburgh, a 74-61 winner over eighth-seeded Virginia Tech.

"Defensively, the difference in the first half for us and the second half [was huge]," said BC coach Al Skinner, whose team trailed, 32-23, at intermission. "No transition baskets, or few transition baskets in the second half, and definitely no second shots."

In snapping a five-game losing streak against Syracuse in the conference tourney, the Eagles hit just 35 percent of their shots (20 of 57), missed all nine 3-point attempts, had 10 shots blocked (4 by Jeremy McNeil), and made just one jump shot from 10 feet out, a Smith shot with 14:19 to go. The Eagles, however, made up for their shooting woes by outrebounding Syracuse, 41-27, and outscoring the defending national champions in the paint, 23-9.

"They did a good job on defense," said Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim. "We got some opportunities, we didn't convert them. That was really the game. But, really, if we would have rebounded the ball on the defensive end at all, it wouldn't have been a close game, I don't think."

BC struggled against Syracuse's impenetrable 2-3 zone defense and trailed by as many as 11 points (30-19 and 32-21) in the first half until Jermaine Watson converted a loose-ball rebound into a coast-to-coast, foul-inducing layup that tied it, 51-51, with 2:51 to go.

"If I get a long rebound like that, I'm going to push it before their defense forms up," Watson said. "McNamara was backpedaling and I just went right at him, right at the rim."

After hitting 10 of 12 foul shots (eight in a row) to help secure the Georgetown win, the tying foul shot wasn't going to be an issue for Watson. "I mean, the best way to finish off a shot like that is to stick the free throw and tie the game," Watson said. "So I said, `Why not?' "

Jared Dudley, who had 13 sneaky points and 11 sneaky rebounds, induced Craig Forth to foul out with 37.5 seconds left and made both foul shots, giving BC its first lead of the game, 55-54.

Playing with four fouls, Agbai (13 points, 3 rebounds) came up with two huge defensive stops on Warrick in the final 20 seconds, which enabled Smith to earn two trips to the foul line. He missed both free throws on his first trip ("About wanted to shoot myself in the head," Smith said), but atoned when he got to the line with 6.1 seconds left for a pair that gave BC its margin of victory.

"I'm so glad for Uka because he's the glue of this team," Watson said. "He's a senior, a fifth-year senior . . . Uka's always leading us."