A matchup with 10th-ranked Notre Dame went about as well as you'd expect for the 9-16 (1-12 ACC) Eagles. Boston College hung with the Irish for a half before getting blown off the court in the second half, suffering a 87-70 home loss to Notre Dame this afternoon at Conte Forum.
The loss—BC's eighth straight—drops the Eagles to 9-17 overall and 1-13 in conference play with four regular season games remaining.
It was a slow start for the Eagles, who shot just 3-of-12 from the floor to start the game and found themselves down 16-7 a little more than seven minutes into the game. But BC would chip away at the lead, getting as close as 26-25 late in the first half. Notre Dame would go on another run late to extend the lead to 9, but buckets by Aaron Brown and Dennis Clifford would cut the Irish lead to five points heading into the locker room.
Despite shooting a blistering 58.6 percent (17-of-29) from the floor in the first half, Notre Dame found itself up just five at the half.
At the break, Hanlan lead all BC scorers with 11 points on 3-of-4 three-point shooting. Brown had 10 and Clifford added 8 points, on an efficient 4-of-5 shooting, while pulling down three rebounds. Notre Dame's Bonzi Colson came off the bench to lead all Irish scorers with 12 points (on 6-of-7 shooting) and 5 boards at half.
The Irish would extend the lead to as many as 21 in the second half, going on a run where they were a ridiculous 11-for-11 from the floor from 19:47 to 8:06—more than 11 minutes without a miss from the floor. BC simply had no answer for Notre Dame down low as Irish scorers had their way with the Eagles in the paint. Of course, on the Irish's 12th consecutive field goal attempt, Zach Auguste missed an uncontested dunk that fell short of the basket.
BC actually didn't shoot poorly in this one and probably did enough offensively to hang with the Irish. It was the defense, particularly in the paint, that was non-existent for the Eagles. The Irish continued to attack BC in the paint, scoring on layup after layup, and shot even better in the second half (75.0% on 18-of-24 shooting) than they did the first (58.6%).
Six Irish players finished in double figures, lead by New Bedford, Mass. native Bonzi Colson, with 16 off the bench. Brown lead all BC scorers with 22 points but made just 9-of-21 field goal attempts, including just 1-of-6 from three. Olivier Hanlan had a pretty pedestrian performance—for Olivier Hanlan, anyway—finishing with 19 points and 4 assists. The Eagles also got a surprisingly good offensive performance from big man Dennis Clifford. Clifford finished with 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting, while pulling down six boards.
Garland Owens (2 points) got the start for the second straight game over Batten (5 points), while Will Magarity did not dress for the second consecutive game, once again held out for lingering concussion-like symptoms.
The Eagles are back in action on Tuesday night as they travel to Pittsburgh to take on the Panthers. Pitt notched a 65-61 road victory over Syracuse earlier in the day.
Leave your thoughts on the game below. Go Eagles!