SAME FEDORA-NEW CROWN?

[PointGuard]

Feb. 6, 2031: #14 Boston College Eagles (16-6, 10-2, NET Ranking 2) vs Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (11-9, 6-5, NET Ranking 64) at Hank McCamish Pavilion in Atlanta, Georgia

Excerpts of the WEEI Radio Broadcast of the Game

*Red Melrose and DJ Monroe here with you, BC fans. We’re bringing this game to our loyal Eagles’ fans tonight from Atlanta where the Eagles who now have risen to #14 in the polls will take on the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. As most of you are probably aware, BC’s PF Danny Toliver has been nursing a sprained toe. So for the second straight game, Coach Aura is starting Tim Cotton at center and moving Ben Schau over to PF. Toliver is expected to get into the game off the bench, but his playing time will be limited.

*Grannum called for his 2nd foul with 15 minutes to play in the first half. Glen Robinson is replacing him at PG.

*Tech’s Johnny Willard is punished the Eagles. He’s now scored 11 points to put the Yellow Jackets ahead 15-10.

*Willard hits another 3 making it 23-10 with 10 minutes left in the half.

*Thorn’s pass is stolen…the 10th turnover by BC. Arnold whips the ball up to a streaking Travis Buchanan who throws it down for yet another breakaway basket to make it 38-19. Coach Aura’s stewing on the sidelines.

*The half with Boston College trailing 45-30. Georgia Tech hit 52% of their FG attempts and 7 of 17 from 3 point distance, but it the Eagles’ 11 turnovers were their downfall.

*Graham looks over the defense, then bounces a pass into Schau. Schau gets it back outside to Glen Robinson who’s free for a 3 pointer that goes down. That’s 9 straight points for the Eagles to start the 2nd half reducing Tech’s lead to 45-39.

*After getting to within 3 points of the Yellow Jackets, the Eagles have let Georgia Tech re-establish a 10 point lead at 54-44.

*Yet another steal and drive for a slam dunk by the Yellow Yackets to make it 73-54 with 4-1/2 minutes left to play.

*The buzzer sounds ending the game with Georgia Tech thumping the Eagles 84-65.

*The Eagles were simply out-played. They let the Yellow Jackets hit 55% of their FG’s and 43% of their 3’s. BC also had 16 turnovers with 7 of those leading to fast-break layins.

*BC’s scoring was pretty much confined to just 3 players with Glen Robinson scoring 19, Corey Graham 17, and Tim Cotton 15.

*We’ve got Coach Aura here…what happened tonight, Coach? “DJ, Georgia Tech just totally took us out of our game tonight. We looked off-balance the entire night except for a short period of time early in the 2nd half. Gotta go back to the drawing board and get back on track for our next game.”

[PointGuard]

Feb. 8, 2031: Wake Forest Demon Deacons (10-11, 4-8) vs #14 Boston College Eagles (16-7, 10-3) at Silvio O. Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill, MA

2nd Assistant Coach Landon Friel

Bobby Grannum and Danny Toliver both have minor injuries. They’ll play but how much is dependent on how they feel during the game. Tim Cotton will start again in place of Danny Toliver.
Wake Forest is a good defensive team, but we cracked their defense when we played them a month ago, winning 92-80. SG Keith Napier is their leading scorer averaging 14.8 ppg with C Fred Simpson not far behind with 12.7 ppg.

It took us 3 minutes to score. But we finally got a lead with 14-1/2 minutes remaining in the half. We proceeded to unravel the Demon Deacons’ defense and offense enroute to a 37-21 halftime advantage.

We played decently until the final few minutes in the game when we let Wake Forest score the last 9 points. But we won 64-51.

C Ben Schau scored 14 points. PG/SG Glen Robinson put in 13 points with 6 assists and 5 rebounds. SF James Pratt added 10 points.

[PointGuard]

Coach Fred Aura

I was in our home office looking over some game videos for our two away games this week, when I hear Janeka call out, “FRED!!! Come here!!!”

I went into the family room where she was and she was running back the DVR saying, “You have to see this on the news.” When she got to where she wanted with the playback, she let it run. The news was reporting that Renee McEntire has been murdered in her home. There weren’t really many details except to say it happened in the early afternoon and robbery was not suspected. All Janeka could say is, “That was the woman who called here, wasn’t it?” I told her it was and how shocked I was that anyone we knew had been killed. To which Janeka replied, “You mean that YOU knew. I certainly didn’t know her.”

[PointGuard]

Feb. 15, 2031: #14 Boston College Eagles (17-7, 11-3, NET Ranking 5) vs Syracuse Orange (5-18, 2-12, NET Ranking 279) at Carrier Dome in Syracuse, New York

Boston Herald

AFTER DIFFICULTY GETTING INTO AIR, EAGLES GLIDE

Syracuse basketball team has greatly failed to live up to expectations this season. Early in last night’s game Boston College began to steadily pull away but then fell behind in the first half and only was able to achieve a slim 31-28 halftime lead due to Syracuse out-shooting them.

The Orange continued to make life difficult for BC early in the second half, but the Eagles took control in the final 15 minutes and rapidly extended their lead. BC’s dominance continued all the way to the end of the game for a 71-50 whipping of Syracuse. The Eagles turned the ball over just 12 times compared to Syracuse’s 26 turnovers.

SG Corey Graham popped in 21 points and C Ben Schau scored 13 plus grabbed 7 rebounds. PG Bobby Grannum went 0 for 16 from the field but made up for his poor shooting by making 8 assists, 4 steals and 2 blocks. None of the Syracuse players scored in double figures.

The win kept Boston College a half-game ahead of Notre Dame, 1 game ahead of Duke and 1-1/2 games ahead of Pittsburgh in the highly contested fight to finish atop the ACC standings.

[PointGuard]

Feb. 17, 2031: #14 Boston College Eagles (18-7, 12-3) vs Miami (FL) Hurricanes at Watsco Center in Coral Gables, FL

1st Assistant Coach Darrell Montgomery

Miami played us tough the entire way. We were unable shake them and they took a small lead at several points in both the first and second halves. At the end of the first half we led 47-42. After being tied with the Hurricanes with 4 minutes to play, we were able to pull away in the waning moments of the game to gain a road victory by a final score of 79-70. We outshot the Hurricanes 51% to 37% but lost the battle of the boards 35-30 which greatly upset Coach Aura. Miami’s C Dan Dyer dominated the glass with 17 rebounds to go along with his 14 points.

SG Corey Graham led our scoring with 19 points. C Ben Schau had 16 points and 7 boards. C Tim Cotton scored 12 points and PG Bobby Grannum and SG/PG Glen Robinson both scored 10 points.

Notre Dame edged Duke to stay a half-game behind us in the ACC standings. Duke’s loss put them 2 games behind us and tied with Pittsburgh.

[PointGuard]

Coach Fred Aura

Two days after returning from the road trip, I had just finished talking to (not really with) Malik whose high-flying team Georgetown had been upset by Providence, Omari’s team. Malik had played 15 minutes so I thought maybe he’d be in a better mood, but he again was un productive, scoring no points, getting no rebounds, but handing out one assists and blocking 2 shots. Malik’s remains taciturn with me.

Shortly after finishing the call, I was surprised by a detective from the police force entering my office. He was investigating the murder of Renee McEntire. He began by asking me how well I knew Renee. When I told him my interaction with her had mainly been at Eagles Soar events while she was married to Gerald, the organization’s president. He asked if I had visited their home. I told him I hadn’t. He asked me a series of questions about her, but I had little information to provide, telling him I really didn’t know her well. He thanked me, but as he rose from the chair in my office, he pulled a hat from a bag he was carrying and asked if it was mine. It was a fedora like I wear. I looked at it and informed him that it was when I saw my initials on the head band. He took the hat back and told me it was evidence. It had been found in Renee’s home and asked if I hadn’t been there why did I think it was there. I must say I stuttered since I was stunned by the turn of events. All I could say was that I had no idea of why it was there, but it was a hat I had lost during the storming of the court after our win over Duke. He said, “Oh really? Did you report it as missing or did you check with the Conte Forum’s lost and found?” I again stammered a bit while telling him that I hadn’t since I was elated and celebrating after the game and didn’t really give losing it any thought since I have a lot of fedoras. As he left my office, all he said is that it looks like an expensive hat…expensive enough that he would have tried to find it.

I left work early and when I got home told Janeka about what had happened. She seemed worried and said, “Fred, you need to hire an attorney.”

We had a home game the next night, but that morning I took Janeka’s advice, got some suggestions about local attorneys, and contacted Shane Vorstadt to arrange a meeting the next day.

[Wayne23]

Cue the "Dragnet" theme

[PointGuard]

Coach Jeremy Anderson

This woman who is a member of our fans group, Eagles Soar, got offed recently. Strangely the police have been interviewing all the coaching staff and several others in the Athletic Department. I’m not sure what they asked of others, but with me they kept asking questions about the woman, Renee McEntire. I really don’t know her so I couldn’t help the police much. But they also asked questions about whether the lady and Coach Aura were friends. Again I have no idea about that. But I did see her leaving Coach Aura’s one day. She was in an all-fire hurry and didn’t say anything to me as she barged past me. I felt kind of funny even mentioning it to the police, but figured it wouldn’t be good to hold anything back from them. Coach Aura seemed a little flustered when I was in his office right after that, but didn’t say anything to me about why she was there.

[PointGuard]

Kathy Dorchester, Reporter for WHDH TV

Here’s my interview with Frederick Aura, head coach of the Boston College Eagles, before his team’s game against Florida State tonight.

KD: Coach, I know you’re about to go into the Conte Forum to prepare for tonight’s game. But just a couple questions before your game.

FA: OK, sure.

KD: Did you know Renee McEntire, the woman who was murdered recently?

FA: Umm…She attended Eagles Soar events and some of our games with her husband. Well, her ex-husband.

KD: Do you know of any enemies she had?

FA: Uhh, enemies? Well, no. I mean, I really didn’t know her. I only talked briefly with her a few times.

KD: I understand the police have interviewed you, your staff and others at the university about her and her murder.

FA: I’m sure that’s just routine…because the police knew she was affiliated with Eagles Soar and so wanted to get whatever background information they can.

KD: No other reasons for the police doing that?

FA: Not that I’m aware of. I really know nothing more. Now I’m sorry, but I have to get together with my team. I thought you wanted to talk with me about our team…something I’m familiar with.

[PointGuard]

Feb. 22, 2031: Florida State Seminoles (14-12, 8-8) vs #14 Boston College Eagles (19-7, 13-3) at Silvio O. Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill, MA

Fritz Merriweather, Vice President of Eagles Soar

I’m the top officer of Eagles Soar attending tonight’s game. Gerald McEntire, our president, returned from Europe immediately after learning of the death of Renee, his ex-wife. But he’s been in mourning so his not being here tonight is totally understandable. We’re all horrified by Renee’s death.

The Eagles need to win tonight. Notre Dame is right on their heels in the race for 1st place in the ACC. So winning tonight and every succeeding game is paramount for the Eagles. I think we’re finally back at full strength tonight. At least I’ve not heard of any new injuries. And I hope Bobby Grannum is able to stay out of foul trouble and put together a big game. He’s been in a slump recently. Fortunately, Glen Robinson has stepped up to fill in at PG. Defensively, the Eagles need to figure out a way to keep SG Evan Martin in check. He’s averaging 16.3 ppg and has scored between 26 and 33 points in 3 of the Seminoles’ last 4 games.

Too many turnovers by BC kept the game razor close throughout the first half. Pretty lackluster play by both teams resulted in a 27-27 tie at the break. Bobby Grannum was one of the few Eagles players who did well. He scored 9 points, but Martin also had 9 points for Florida State.

Sloppy play by the Seminoles allowed BC to slowly creep ahead in the 2nd half. Halfway through the 2nd half, the Eagles led 51-37. BC went on to win 72-52. Not much flair, but a win is a win.

Perimeter players carried the Eagles. PG Bobby Grannum scored 16, SG Corey Graham hit for 14, and PG/SG/SF Glen Robinson scored 11. The Eagles kept Evan Martin in check…he scored just 14 points.

Coach Aura continued to ignore the Eagles Soar which is causing some members to grumble.

Notre Dame won keeping them a half-game behind the Eagles, but Duke lost putting the Blue Devils in a tie with Pittsburgh for 3rd place, 3 games behind.