BC: Dramatic pause

The Boston College men's basketball team produced another dramatic ending in an 87-82 win over Northeastern in a nonconference game yesterday at Conte Forum. The Eagles (8-4) squandered an 18-point lead before rallying in the final minutes behind the scoring of Sean Marshall (19 points), Tyrese Rice (25), and Sean Williams (16).

The Huskies (3-9), coming off a 61-41 loss at Louisville, had their highest-scoring game of the season and surpassed 58 points for the first time since Nov. 25. BC was playing its second successive game without Jared Dudley (left foot), who had performed in 110 consecutive games before missing a 98-93 overtime loss to Duquesne Thursday.

"I told the team, 'A few days ago we would have lost this game,' " BC coach Al Skinner said. "But we have a flaw in our character and when we think that we're in control, instead of maintaining the lead, we become relaxed. And we are just not talented enough for that to occur. It's something we have to work seriously hard to guard against.

"The first five minutes of the second half, we allowed them back in the ballgame. That's a flaw, and we have to work real hard to overcome it. It's just how relaxed we become and don't continue to work hard. It's funny, we worked our tail off to get the lead and then we start walking through the offense, not communicating on defense, and allowing open shots. We were a little blasé.

"We've got to be able to maintain intensity and that's not occurring. We are shorthanded, and if we're full strength this doesn't really happen, because we have more flexibility. But something lies within this team and we have to guard against it occurring."

BC appeared on the way to a rout in the early going. Northeastern converted only one field goal in the first 3:53 but remained in contention with 3-pointers. After Eugene Spates's 3-pointer cut NU's deficit to 15-12 5:19 into the contest, BC shifted into second gear. The Huskies went 5:30 with only one field goal as a 17-5 Eagles run extended the lead to 32-17 on Shamari Spears's baseline shot with 7:30 remaining in the first half. Rice's 3-pointer following a timeout extended the BC advantage to 46-28 with 3:46 to go.

But as BC faltered late in the first half and at the start of the second, NU went on an 18-3 run with Matt Janning's 3-pointer cutting the deficit to 55-52 with 16:29 remaining. The Eagles went 5:23 over both halves with a Marshall follow their only field goal.

Janning converted seven consecutive shots in the opening 7:21 of the second half, capping a 25-7 run covering both halves with a baseline jumper for a 59-59 tie with 13:25 remaining, then squandering a 3-point play opportunity after cutting the deficit to 62-61 with 12:50 to play by missing a foul shot. A Manny Adako follow tied the score, 70-70, with 7:45 remaining; then BC scored 13 successive points, capped by a Williams dunk with 2:51 remaining.

That would be enough to clinch the result, but the Eagles' lack of concentration again surfaced in the final minutes. Though NU went 5:28 without a field goal, the Huskies rallied to score 12 of the final 16 points.

The Huskies' Bennet Davis (27 points), Janning (21), and Spates (20) had career-high scoring games.

"The first four minutes they came out and jumped on us," said Bill Coen, in his first year as NU coach after serving as Skinner's assistant at BC. "We weren't rebounding, we weren't being physical, we didn't compete. In the second half our goal was to compete. We were down quite a bit, and you can't wait for them to come to you. You have to change the flow of the game a little bit."

With the Eagles' complicity, NU did just that.

"We just started to get careless on the defensive end," Marshall said. "We played good defense for a five-minute stretch, then lost our focus, and this team can't afford to do that.

"We did a little better job on the defensive end and in terms of energy and commitment than against Duquesne. We have to concentrate the whole 40 minutes or it's going to come down to the end, and we really don't want to be in those kind of games when we don't have to be."