SAME FEDORA-NEW CROWN?

[PointGuard]

Mar. 3. 2030: Virginia Cavaliers (18-13, 8-11) vs #8 Boston College Eagles (23-7. 14-5) at Silvio O. Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill, MA

RyReys Blog, Ryan Reynolds

In a tune-up for the ACC Tournament, the Boston College Eagles hosted the Virginia Cavaliers who were in a dogfight with the Eagles for 2nd place until the Cavaliers went into a bit of a tailspin in the past 3 weeks.

For the 2nd straight game, BC started slowly. Their sluggish start in which they shot horribly, committed far too many turnovers and were charged with numerous fouls resulted in Virginia achieving a 7 point lead midway through the half. It was obvious to all that Coach Aura was aggravated with his team’s punchless effort. Aura’s chastisement apparently worked. Corey Graham led the team to their first lead with 3:54 remaining in the half. But after moving ahead by 3 points, the Eagles faltered badly in the final 2 minutes to trail 36-28 at the break.

Coach Aura's prodding in the locker room resulted in his team scoring the first 9 points of the 2nd half to edge ahead. But Virginia again recaptured the lead. Midway through the half the Eagles offense caught fire. The team jumped on top and then gradually pulled away to score an 80-67 victory.

The Eagles 2nd half turn-around produced a 55% to 37% shooting advantage for BC over the Cavaliers. Boston College also out-rebounded Virginia 41-26.
In the post-game interview, Coach Aura said, “In the first half we fizzled, but in the 2nd half we sizzled.”

Leading the scoring for Boston College was SG Corey Graham with 19 points. PG Bobby Grannum contributed 15 points and C Courtland Reese added 10.

The Eagles finished in 2nd place in the ACC standings.

Duke…20-0
Boston College…15-5
Florida State…13-7
North Carolina…13-7
Clemson…11-9
Notre Dame…10-10
North Carolina State…10-10
Miami (FL)…10-10
Georgia Tech…9-11
Syracuse…8-12
Virginia…8-12
Pittsburgh…7-13
Virginia Tech…7-13
Louisville…5-15
Wake Forest…4-16

[PointGuard]

1st Assistant Coach Darrell Montgomery (practice)

We coaches had been talking this spring about players declaring for the draft. We now have players on our roster who very well could leave us early. The two primary ones are our guards, freshman PG Bobby Grannum and sophomore SG Corey Graham. Both not only started for us all season but are very talented and have great potential. We have two other freshmen, C Tim Cotton and SF Maynard Gardner. Neither were starters but have tremendous potential and both wanted a lot more minutes on the court than they got this season. So we were worried we’d have someone leave us early.

Surprisingly, Bobby, Corey and Tim never really showed interest in leaving after this season. We coaches had a big sigh of relief about that. But Maynard let us know he was thinking of jumping ship. Like I said, he’s going to be a very good player. But to be honest, he still has a lot of development before I think he’s ready to go pro. While we discussed some of the pros and cons of declaring early, we were careful to leave the ultimate decision totally up to him.

Today on the final day for players to declare, Maynard let Coach Aura know that he’d decided to stick with us for at least another season. We’re delighted since he’ll be in the mix to start at SF this coming season…and expect that no matter if he’s a starter or not, he’ll be playing a lot more that he did this season.

So now our next worry will be if any of our guys will opt to transfer this coming summer. As mentioned, Tim and Maynard plus some of our other subs wanted more playing time and that could end up biting us in the butt.

Other ACC schools got some bitter news though: both Duke and North Carolina had 3 players each declare and Notre Dame and Syracuse each have one player declaring early.

[PointGuard]

Boston College Chronicle

ACC TOURNAMENT RESULTS

ACC Tournament—Day 1

#15 seed Wake Forest-72, #10 seed Syracuse-63

#11 seed Virginia-66, #14 seed Louisville-63

#12 seed Pittsburgh-78, #13 seed Virginia Tech-65

"I wasn't surprised by the results of this first day, even Wake Forest's win over Syracuse. Throughout the ACC Tournament anyone can win depending upon if a team gets hot, or another team has an off-night, The Syracuse/Louisville was a thriller," said Coach Fred Aura in response to a question about the first day's results. When asked about his team's preparations, Coach Aura responded, "We won't know who we're playing until tomorrow's games are completed. But we have a lot to practice and are doing so without worrying about who we will have to play."

[PointGuard]

Boston College Chronicle

ACC TOURNAMENT RESULTS

ACC Tournament—Day 2

#12 seed Pittsburgh-69, #5 seed Clemson-60

#11 seed Virginia-73, #8 seed Miami (FL)-70

#7 seed North Carolina St.-72, #15 seed Wake Forest-67

#9 seed Georgia Tech-88, #6 seed Notre Dame-78

[PointGuard]

Boston College Chronicle

ACC TOURNAMENT RESULTS

ACC Tournament Quarterfinals

#1 seed Duke-73, #9 seed Georgia Tech-58

#2 seed Boston College-82, #7 seed North Carolina St.-75
NC State hit their first 5 shots in the game and then went on to drop in 64% of their FG’s throughout the entire first half enroute to building a 42-35 halftime advantage. The Wolfpack held a lead throughout the 2nd half until PG Bobby Grannum and SF Keith Kolder combined to knock down 5 straight 3’s. The Eagles then had to fight to cling onto a small lead, only expanding it when NC State was forced to foul in the waning moments of the game. Leading the Eagles were C Courtland Reese with 20 points and 15 rebounds, PG Bobby Grannum with 12 points, and PF Danny Toliver with 10 points. Decisive in the win was BC’s dominance on the boards where they pulled down 44 rebounds compared to just 20 by the Wolfpack.

#11 seed Virginia-89, #3 seed Florida St.-71

#4 seed North Carolina-81, #12 seed Pittsburgh-69

[PointGuard]

Boston College Chronicle

ACC TOURNAMENT RESULTS

ACC Tournament Semi-finals:

#1 seed Duke-70, #4 seed North Carolina-56

#11 seed Virginia-77. #2 seed Boston College-68
Virginia jumped out to a 24-11 lead, primarily by hitting 5 of their first 7 3-point shots. By playing poor defensively, shooting poorly, and turning the ball over frequently, the Eagles fell behind by 22 points before rallying late in the half to narrow the halftime gap to 47-39. BC cut into the lead further in the 2nd half, but their shooting woes kept them from being able to get ahead. Topping the scoring for the Eagles was PG Bobby Grannum with 22 points. C Courtland Reese recorded a double-double with 19 points and 14 boards. SG Corey Grannum added 10 points.

ACC Championship:

#1 seed Duke-77, #11 seed Virginia-68

[PointGuard]

Boston College Chronicle

EAGLES TEAM AND PLAYER STATS

By Kinsey Ramsey

Boston College will go into the NCAA Tournament with a 25-8 record. The team was 11-5 in the ACC, finishing in 2nd place. The Eagles are ranked 8th in the polls and have the 5th best NET Ranking. The Eagles averaged 75.6 ppg while giving up 67.0 ppg.

Starters stats:

PG Bobby Grannum: 11.0 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 5.7 apg
SG Corey Graham: 12.9 ppg, 3.4 rpg, 2.1 apg
SF Darius Hein: 5.8 ppg, 3.5 rpg, 1.5 apg
PF Danny Toliver: 7.4 ppg, 5.7 rpg, 0.8 apg
C Courtland Reese: 13.5 ppg, 8.3 rpg, 1.5 apg

Reserves stats:

Glen Robinson: 8.5 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 1.8 apg
Winston Minahan: 5.2 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 0.6 apg
Tim Cotton: 5.0 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 0.8 apg
Maynard Gardner: 1.8 ppg, 1.1 rpg, 0.5 apg
Rashon Thorn: 2.8 ppg, 0.7 rpg, 1.4 apg
Keith Kolder: 2.6 ppg, 1.5 rpg, 0.4 apg
Adrian Moss: 1.9 ppg, 1.1 rpg, 0.8 apg
Andy Dawson: 1.0 ppg, 1.0 rpg, 0.0 apg

[PointGuard]

JJ Conroy, BeanTownSports Blog

ACC Teams going to post-season tournaments

NCAA
#2 ranked Duke(34-1) is the #1 seed in the East Region and will go up against the winner of the Bucknell/Evansville play-in game.
#6 ranked North Carolina (24-9) is the #3 seed in the East Region and will take on #14 seed Sacred Heart (21-11).
Clemson (19-13) is the #11 seed in the East Region and plays #6 seed Memphis (22-12).
#8 ranked Boston College (25-8) is the #2 seed in the Midwest Region and takes on #15 seed Dartmouth (17-14).
#11 ranked Florida State (24-8) is the #3 seed in the West Region and goes up against #14 seed Bowling Green State (21-12).
#18 ranked Notre Dame (21-11) is the #5 seed in the West Region and will play #12 seed Albany (22-10).
North Carolina State (21-12) is the #8 seed and goes up against #9 seed Colorado State (24-9).

NIT
Miami (FL) is the #4 seed in the East Region and plays #5 seed Portland.
Georgia Tech is the #4 seed in the South Region and plays #5 seed Baylor.
Virginia is the #5 seed in the West Region and plays #4 seed Saint Mary’s.

CIT
Pittsburgh is the #8 seed in the East Region and plays #1 seed Youngstown State.

Boston College prospects

So let’s take a look at our local team, the Boston College Eagles. What are their chances in the Big Dance? Easy answer: not good. This team has shown a propensity for getting off to really slow starts in recent games this season. Getting into a hole early in the NCAA Tournament is a recipe for disaster. In addition, the injury bug has bitten them with C Courtland Reese experiencing back spasms that are expected to limit him for the next week-and-a-half. And 6th man Glen Robinson injured his arm that could impact his play for about 5 days. My prediction for the Eagles is that they go out in Round 2 (Round of 32). The best I can see them doing is getting to the Sweet 16.

[PointGuard]

Boston Herald

RESULTS OF ACC TEAMS IN POST-SEASON TOURNAMENTS

CIT

Round 1

Pittsburgh-96, Youngstown State-75

Round 2
Florida International-74, Pittsburgh-71

NIT

Round 1

Miami (FL)-79, Portland-54
Georgia Tech-63, Baylor-44
Virginia-72, St. Mary’s-61

Round 2

Miami (FL)-74, West Virginia-69
Murray State-77, Georgia Tech-63
Virginia-76, Western Carolina-60

Round 3

Alabama-Birmingham-77, Miami (FL)-76
Virginia-93, Nevada-74

Round 4 (Semifinals)

Virginia-85, Murray State-71

Round 5 (Championship)

Missouri-83, Virginia-75

NCAA

Round 1

Duke-67, Evansville-36
North Carolina-85, Sacred Heart-60
Clemson-71, Memphis-70
Florida State-70, Bowling Green State-59
Albany-64, Notre Dame-63
North Carolina State-87, Colorado State-77
Boston College-90, Dartmouth-75--Dartmouth scored the first 7 points of the game. BC chipped away at that lead and took the lead when Corey Graham sank a 3 to make it 11-10. The Eagles then slowly pulled away and finished the half on top 48-34. The Eagles never let Dartmouth get back into the game in the 2nd half and won easily. Scoring in double figures were: PG Bobby Grannun-16, C Courtland Reese-16, SG Corey Graham-13, and SF/SG Glen Robinson-11.

Round 2

Duke-88, Hofstra-66
North Carolina-85, Clemson-76
Penn State-90, North Carolina State-88
Nebraska-74, Florida State-75
Arkansas-67, Boston College-60--BC beat Arkansas by 24 points early this season. But a combination of sloppy ball-handling together with poor shooting resulted in Boston College falling behind Arkansas by as much as 11 points in the first half. In the final minutes of the half the Eagles cut into the lead to trail by just a 35-31 score at the break. Things didn’t improve in the 2nd half. The Eagles cut the lead to 2 points only to see the Razorbacks rapidly pull away as the Eagles offense fell apart. Arkansas built a 15 point lead when the Eagles were unable to get their shots to fall and repeatedly turned over the ball, finishing the game with 18 turnovers. Topping the scoring for BC was C Courtland Reese with 15 points. C Tim Cotton and SF/SG/PG Glen Robinson both scored 10 points.

Round 3 (Sweet 16)

Duke-88, Central Florida-56
North Carolina-66, Southern California-54

Round 4 (Elite 8)

Duke-69, North Carolina-62

Round 5 (Final 4)
Oklahoma-60, Duke-57

Championships:

CIT: Columbia
CBI: Davidson
NIT: Missouri
NCAA: Oklahoma

[PointGuard]

JJ Conroy, BeanTownSports Blog

Well, didn’t I say that the Boston College Eagles would get no further than the 2nd round in the NCAA Tournament? Another disappointing end of the season for the Eagles. The team just seemed to be running out of gas the last few weeks of this season. Even though BC is bringing in highly regarded recruits, the team has regressed the past 2 seasons under Coach Fred Aura. And there can be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the Eagles were quite inferior to Duke this season. Hell, even Coach Aura’s son’s team (Providence) was a much better team than the Eagles this year. Is it possible that getting to the NCAA Tournament is the best Aura can do? A team that finishes high in the ACC standings should definitely be able to get much deeper into the NCAA Tournament than their Round 2 exits the past 2 seasons. Maybe it’s time for Boston College to start looking for a coach who can take the team the next step.

To top this off, I have it from good sources that there are a number of returning players who have either a poor relationship with the coaches or with the rest of the team. Does that mean that several players may decide to jump ship and transfer to other programs now that the transfer rules have been significantly loosened starting this summer?

The clouds are darkening. The winds are beginning to howl. A storm seems to be brewing for the Aura-led Eagles.