Brian: The Eagles used a solid first half to keep this game tied at half. Unfortunately, it seemed like the Eagles never came out of the locker room and instead jumped on a plane back to Boston. BC scored a season-low 17 points in the second half - including just 9 points in the final 15:16 - falling to Florida State 62-47.
To put this in perspective, you might have thought the performance against Maine was bad. Well the Eagles at least got to 19 points in the second half of that one. Not to mention four of the Eagles’ 17 second half points last night were in garbage time against Seminole bench players.
Michael Snaer absolutely killed BC, tying a career-high with 18 points on 6-of-9 shooting. None of his shots were bigger than when Rakim Sanders tried to swat the ball out of Snaer's hands - which pissed Snaer off - he worked his way through a couple of screens and then hit a 30 foot three-pointer while virtually unguarded.
7-footer Solomon Alabi had a field day, blocking 7 Eagles shots (which felt more like 20), and adding 8 points and 4 rebounds on the night. BC's big men were ineffective. Cortney Dunn fouled out in only 12 minutes of action, and Josh Southern only logged 10 minutes playing hurt for most of the night.
The Eagles shot 33.3 percent (17 of 51) from the floor and committed 20 turnovers.
Since you are even more optimistic about BC than I am, I’m hoping you can draw some positives from this latest Eagles’ performance. Got anything for me?
Jeff: What happened in that second half? The Corey Raji airball that came up at least four feet short seemed so set off a string bad possessions where Jackson bounced a pass of Roche's knee, then Ravenel rolled a pass to our bench.
How does someone play 38 minutes and score 31 points one game and then doesn't enter the game until 9 minutes into the game the next time out?
But finally on to the positives. Trapani came back and played pretty well. It's tough to win on the road. The schedule is about to get easier. A.J. Yawn is not on our team. He played in garbage time for Florida State and looked like he had never touched a basketball before.
Brian: Yikes. That's all you got for me? That A.J. Yawn doesn't play for the Eagles? It's gotten so bad that we have to critique the opponent's bench player's play?
Despite the schedule getting easier down the stretch, it doesn't look like it will get any easier for the Eagles. Even though 3-7 North Carolina has struggled mightily this year, it would be crazy at this point to assume that the defending National Champions won't show up to play. After that, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech won't be easy games, especially the Georgia Tech game on the road. The Yellow Jackets cause all sorts of matchup problems for the Eagles.
The way things are headed, it is looking like the Eagles' season finale at N.C. State will serve as the play-in game for the right to play in next year's ACC-Big Ten Challenge.