Another stinging disappointment

CLEVELAND -- When it was over, when the final horn sounded on Boston College's 83-75 loss to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in yesterday's second round of the Chicago Regional, Craig Smith felt the same hollow feeling he had after last year's second-round loss to Georgia Tech.

"It was just so sad, for the simple fact that we ended up losing," Smith said. "Anything can happen in this tournament, but at the same time I felt pretty good when we went up by 1 [75-74 with 1:46 to go] that we were going to keep the lead down the stretch."

The Eagles, however, squandered it when they committed a turnover (by senior center Nate Doornekamp) and allowed Milwaukee to convert a crucial basket by Adrian Tigert that enabled the Panthers to take a 78-75 lead with 51.2 seconds left.

When the game ended, Smith tugged his jersey from his shorts and began a long, slow walk to BC's locker room at the Wolstein Center.

Unlike last year's 57-54 loss to Georgia Tech, when he felt he had not done enough after being held to a season-low 2 points in 22 foul-plagued minutes, Smith's only consolation yesterday was that he did all he could by scoring a game-high 25 points on 11-for-19 shooting.

"I still felt like I could've done more, as far as defensively," Smith said. "They really had a big play [by Tigert] and if I would've been a step faster, I probably would have had a tip on the ball."

Asked if he was now going to take stock of his future and consider leaving BC early for the NBA, Smith said, "I don't know. My head's all cluttered up right now. I'm just focusing now on getting back to school."

Said BC coach Al Skinner, "I don't know exactly what he's going to do, but I still think he's going to come back. It's just like when Troy [Bell] was a junior. We got to sit down and talk about it."

Admittedly fun
UW-Milwaukee coach Bruce Pearl, a 1982 BC graduate, was forced to come clean with his players that, yes, he did indeed serve as the Eagles' mascot during BC's 67-64 NCAA Tournament victory over Wake Forest March 15, 1981, in Tuscaloosa, Ala., while he was a student assistant under Dr. Tom Davis. "Have you ever done anything for a weekend that you didn't tell anybody about?" Pearl said. "I had a ball and the thing about being a mascot is that you can get very close to the cheerleaders. I never had that type of access to cheerleaders at Boston College. There were a lot of positive things about it." Said Panthers guard Ed McCants, "I think it's fitting for his character and his love and passion for the game. He does what he has to do for his team to win." . . . Yesterday's game featured an interesting contrast of sideline coaching demeanors: On one side of the court you had the unflappable Skinner, and on the other there was the frenetic Pearl . . . BC's 6-foot-10-inch freshman swatmeister, Sean Williams, entered the game needing one block to establish the school's season record. Williams tied John Garris (61, 1982-83) in Thursday's 85-65 romp over Pennsylvania and surpassed him yesterday with two . . . Before yesterday, the only other time a BC graduate had coached a basketball game against his alma mater was when former Georgetown coach Jack Magee (Class of '59) opposed the Eagles during his six years with the Hoyas.