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BC's Tyrese Rice (left), who was held to 10 points, tries his hand at playing some defense against Robert Morris's Gary Wallace. (Justine Hunt/Globe Staff) |
R. Morris 57, BC 51
It is one thing to lose at home by 25 points to the third-ranked team in the nation, one that could very well win it all in March. But it was quite another to lose another home game to a team almost everyone expected Boston College to beat.
After getting thoroughly trounced by Kansas Saturday, the Eagles seemed to bear the psychological scars of that shellacking by absorbing a humiliating 57-51 loss last night against Robert Morris University, which tallied its first victory over an Atlantic Coast Conference opponent in the Colonials' first matchup against BC.
Tyrese Rice seemed to express the frustration of the Conte Forum crowd of 3,505 when he got stripped of the ball on BC's last possession of the game in the final seconds. The BC junior guard stood and watched as the ball went the other way and Robert Morris ran out the clock before he removed his white headband and flung it in disgust toward a section of empty seats that otherwise would have been filled with BC students.
"It's very frustrating because these are games that you're supposed to win," said Rice, who had 10 points on 4-for-11 shooting and 3 assists to go along with 4 turnovers. "You have to take care of those kind of games, because in the long run it could hurt the team, but I just felt like we weren't ready to play from the jump. Maybe we underestimated how good a team they were, but we stressed it for the last two days that they were a good team and they had the potential to beat good teams."
The Eagles struggled to launch into their offensive sets, and became stunningly static in their movement when game situations cried out for them to attack the basket.
"Right from the very beginning of this game, we did not execute well on the offensive end," said BC coach Al Skinner, whose Eagles (10-4) were held to a season-low 51 points on 21-for-51 shooting from the field and matched their season high for turnovers with 20, which resulted in 21 points for Robert Morris.
"You're not going to win many games in Division 1 basketball scoring only 51 points, it's just that simple."
No matter the opponent, whether it be unbeaten Kansas of the Big 12 or unranked Robert Morris (11-5) of the Northeast Conference, which got a game-high 15 points from forward A.J Jackson.
"This win is huge, to come in here and beat BC the way we did, an ACC team," said senior guard Tony Lee, a former Charlestown High standout who made a triumphant homecoming to Boston by scoring 12 points and grabbing 8 rebounds for the Colonials. "It was more special to me, because I was home and I had about 150 family and friends here and to win it was huge."
The Eagles faced a 33-26 halftime deficit after converting just 11 of 26 field goals in the first half. BC went 0 for 6 from the field and committed 3 of their 11 first-half turnovers in the last 6:22 before intermission, which enabled the Colonials to go on a 13-2 run to end the half.
"Right now, we are a very robotic team in the sense we will run to a spot and just stop and we're not really evaluating what our situation is as a team," Skinner said.
That much seemed evident when the Colonials opened up a 14-6 lead, their largest of the first half, on a 3-pointer by Jimmy Langhurst with 13:53 left.
The Eagles emerged from their first-half funk when Rice drained a 3-pointer that sparked an 18-6 run, good for a 24-20 lead. But that good work went for naught when the Eagles lapsed into their old habits.
"We got to the point where we were literally walking the ball up the floor and allowing them to set up their defense," Skinner said. "We put no pressure on them by pushing the ball up the floor. We showed no initiative to attack and it allowed them to come back and set up their defense."
After Robert Morris extended its halftime lead to 35-26 on a driving layup by Bateko Francisco, the Eagles began to attack the basket and reeled off 8 unanswered points, with freshman Rakim Sanders scoring 5 of his team-high 12 points in that stretch, to pull BC within 35-34.
The Colonials pushed the lead back to 6 (42-36 and 44-38) before the Eagles pushed the basketball and scored in transition, tying the game on Corey Raji's fastbreak layup with 6:15 to go. After Sanders tied it, 47-47, with 5:18 left, the game slipped away from the Eagles when they failed to generate any offense down the stretch, scoring just two baskets in the final 2:49.
"We have no chance of having any success scoring just 51 points a game," Skinner said.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
