Eagles set to fly high

Eighteen up, eighteen down.

And not a mark on them.

The Boston College men's basketball team, ranked No. 8 in the Associated Press Top 25 and the ESPN/USA Today coaches' poll, kept perfect pace with No. 1 Illinois as the only two undefeated Division 1 teams in the nation last night with a 64-49 Big East victory over Georgetown before a Conte Forum sellout crowd of 8,606.

BC's raucous student body filled the building with deafening chants of "Undefeated! Undefeated!" as the Eagles wrapped up January with an 18-0 overall record. More important, BC surged to the top of the conference standings as the only remaining unbeaten team at 7-0 after 20th-ranked Pittsburgh pinned No. 4 Syracuse with its first league loss, 76-69, last night.

"We're making another step toward our goal, and our goal is to win the Big East championship," said junior forward Craig Smith, who led the Eagles with 20 points, 8 rebounds, 4 steals, and 3 assists. "Right now, we've proven that we can win big games and we can win close games. We've still got [to play] teams like Syracuse and Pitt. From top to bottom, this is a great league, and to be on top of it is really good."

Syracuse's first conference setback, coupled with losses by No. 2 Duke and No. 5 Wake Forest in Atlantic Coast Conference games last week, will likely propel the Eagles to new heights in the polls, possibly as high as the top five.

"I think with those losses we'd probably jump from [No.] 8 to 5, maybe even a 4, I don't know," said sophomore forward Jared Dudley, who overcame an 0-for-2 shooting effort in the first half to score 12 of his 13 points in the second half. "The ACC gets so much recognition that Duke, Carolina could lose and they'd still be in the top five. The only thing we can keep doing is winning and worrying about ourselves.

"With Syracuse losing, we can definitely put ourselves in a good position at the end of the day if we keep winning."

With each win they have recorded in the best start in school history, the tension and attention on the Eagles has increased. Last night was no different. BC was greeted by an electric atmosphere and a media contingent that grew to include national reporters.

"Now that we're ranked, I guess we're getting people's attention," Smith said. "I mean, it was a great atmosphere and that's what got us off to a pretty great start."

After Georgetown's Ashanti Cook hit a 3-pointer for the game's first basket, the Eagles put the defensive shackles on the Hoyas, holding them without a basket (0 for 14) over a 15-minute stretch while forcing 14 first-half turnovers.

The Eagles should have owned a halftime lead that was at least twice as large as the 24-12 margin they controlled, but none of that mattered to BC coach Al Skinner, whose team held Georgetown to 38.8 percent shooting (19 of 49) and forced 16 turnovers overall.

"I was very pleased with the way we played defense in the first half," he said. "That's what allowed us to have the scoring opportunities that we got."

After Smith hit back-to-back baskets to expand BC's halftime lead to 16 points, 30-14, with 17:11 to go, the Hoyas came back to twice pull within 5 (40-35 and 42-37).

Showing his Princeton pedigree, Georgetown coach John Thompson III seemed to borrow a page from the playbook of his old college coach, Pete Carril, in helping the Hoyas claw their way back into the game with a steady dose of screens and backdoor cuts for easy looks at the basket.

But the Eagles, taking their cue from their unflappable coach, were unfazed. "He just rubs off on us," Smith said.

When it came to crunch time, the Eagles pulled rank on the inexperienced Hoyas, outscoring them, 22-12, over the last 6:14. Junior guard Louis Hinnant beat the shot-clock buzzer for a trey with 2:52 to go to give the Eagles a 55-41 lead and, for all intents and purposes, the ballgame. "It's a good feeling to be first right now," Hinnant said. "We worked pretty hard to get to this point and we've just got to keep it up in order to stay there."