JJ Conroy, BeanTownSports Blog
Ewww! What’s that foul odor? Seems it’s coming from Chapel Hill, NC. Ohhh, it must be the Boston College Eagles late 2nd half rancid play. They simply were putrid while allowing North Carolina to score 19 unanswered points. Yes, unanswered….as in scoring zero points while giving up 19. Not only did the Eagles offense stink but their vaunted defense gave up 29 points in 7 short minutes at the end of the game. During that time they surrendered an 8 point lead to fall to a bruising crash landing loss that was more ungainly than a gooney bird’s crash landing.
The strengths of the Boston College team (defense and rebounding) took a real beating. And their inability to score points to a really serious deficiency of the Eagles team. That’s their shooting. Their FG% is only 131st best in the country. And their 3-point shooing percentage is 226th best. Those aren’t stats that point to consistent success this season. So it’s no wonder their rebounding seems to be a strength…they pull down the 12th most rebounds per game of any Division I team. Well, that’s because their defense makes their opponents normally shoot poorly…and the Eagles themselves create even more possible rebounds by shooting poorly.
This isn’t a problem that can be fixed overnight. If most of your team are low percentage shooters, you may HOPE for improvement, but the likelihood of actually accomplishing that is very low.
This spells out something most Eagles fans don’t want to accept. This year’s team is going to have an extremely tough time going up against top-flight competition in the tournaments at the end of the season. So if you’re the biggest Eagles supporter on your block, you may just have to hold your nose as you root for them and see them occasionally stink up the gym the rest of this season.
Meanwhile, the Duke Blue Devils are playing like real champs. Their defense it tops in Division I basketball, giving up just 53.9 ppg. The Blue Devils have won 17 straight games and now are a full 2 games ahead of 2nd place Boston College in the ACC standings. Their 9 wins in the ACC have been by margins of 16, 33, 30, 15, 10, 18, 23, 11, and 26 points. So they’re making the rest of the ACC look like high school teams. Duke and Boston College play each other next week. I’m picking the Blue Devils, but since the game is at BC’s Conte Forum, the Eagles at least have a chance if they can avoid another complete collapse. But BC plays in Durham 3 weeks later…and the Blue Devils will singe the tail feathers of the Eagles in that one.