BC: Second go-around

CLEVELAND -- They insist Georgia Tech is no longer on their minds.

After losing to the Yellow Jackets, 57-54, in the second round of last year's NCAA Tournament in Milwaukee, the Boston College men's basketball team has returned to the demarcation point that proved to be a source of motivation.

All season, the Eagles talked of how the loss to Georgia Tech served as the launching pad of their 20-0 start, and how everyone on the team remembered the stinging disappointment of watching the Yellow Jackets advance to the Final Four in San Antonio.

"I think the fact that they were disappointed was because they didn't take advantage of that opportunity," said coach Al Skinner, whose team surrendered a 1-point lead with 30 seconds to go against the Yellow Jackets. "If we're here in the same situation, we'd like to think we'd take advantage of that opportunity, if given, because we had a chance to win that ballgame and we did not."

It only served to fuel talk about how the Eagles would go further if the opportunity arose to play in another NCAA Tournament. In fact, in its last five NCAA appearances, BC has been unable to get past the second round. The last time the Eagles made it to the Sweet 16 was 1994, when they soared to the final of the East Regional in Miami, before bowing to Florida, 74-66.

When the fourth-seeded Eagles (25-4) face 12th-seeded University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (25-5) in a 5:30 p.m. second-round matchup of the Chicago Regional today at the Wolstein Center, BC will be looking not only to get past its Horizon League opponents, but also that second-round obstacle. The Eagles advanced with an 85-65 drubbing of 13th-seeded Pennsylvania, while the Panthers, coached by 1982 BC graduate Bruce Pearl, earned their first appearance in the second round (in only their second NCAA berth) with an 83-73 upset of fifth-seeded Alabama.

Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which got 21 points apiece from Joah Tucker and Ed McCants, came out and rolled back the Crimson Tide with a withering full-court press aimed at negating Alabama's size advantage. The Panthers then jumped all over Alabama to take a 17-point lead, 32-15, by dropping a barrage of 3-pointers -- 10 in the first half and 12 of 21 overall.

"Any time a team shoots that well, you've got to take recognition," Skinner said. "My thing is if a team is going to make those kind of shots, you just want to be in a position to contest the shots. If they are going to make them, you have to live with it. It's a problem when they're open threes. That's what concerns me. We want to avoid giving them open looks."

Conversely, Pearl and his Panthers must contend with BC's size and toughness.

"They honor the game with the way they play -- physical," said Pearl, who yesterday celebrated his 45th birthday. "Offensively, it will be hard to score inside on Boston College. They are big and physical -- they do a good job with multiple defenses . . . Offensively, Boston College runs a traditional flex and they run it tighter than anyone I have seen. I think teams have tried to extend, and they penetrate as well as anybody.

"The closer they get those big bodies to the basket, the more effective they are."

Craig Smith, BC's bruising 6-foot-7-inch, 250-pound junior forward, led the Eagles by recording 15 points and 13 rebounds against Penn. He also had a career-high seven assists. Smith knows if he had submitted that type of performance last year against Georgia Tech, when he was held to a season-low 2 points in 22 minutes before fouling out with 30 seconds left, there's no telling how far BC might have advanced.

"It has driven me all along, especially during the offseason," Smith said. "I felt I didn't play well and was hardly in the game [against Georgia Tech], so now we have another shot at it and I'm going to take advantage of it."

Now that they've reached this familiar fork in the Road to the Final Four, the Eagles insist they are not dwelling on the past.

"I think, at this point in the season, we're pretty much over that," said junior guard Louis Hinnant. "Georgia Tech and Wisconsin-Milwaukee are totally different teams, so we have totally different things to focus on. It obviously will be a motivating factor. But right now we're focusing on the task at hand. That game was a year ago and if we dwell on the past, it's only going to haunt us in the future."