I didn't get to watch/listen to last night's hoops game. That was probably a good thing.
Yes, we lost to Harvard. Again. The loss isn't a good one and extremely tempers any talk of NCAA Tournament berths and top seeds in the ACC Tournament.
So how did the Eagles lose this one?
A) Poor defense
B) Not protecting the ball
C) Harvard and Tommy Amaker-led teams in BC's head
D) All of the above
I'll choose D) ...
Harvard hands BC another loss (Eagle in Atlanta)
"Our success this season has really been driven by our offense. We have been efficient scoring, shooting 3s and preventing turnovers. Tonight we didn't protect the ball. We had 14 turnovers and it cost us when we were trying to catch up. Since our D is suspect, we need our offense to be perfect. Tonight it wasn't."
Another year, another loss to Harvard (Soaring To Glory)
"As for the Eagles, not much doing there. They led by 9 in the first half, but at about the halfway point, the offense shut off and the sloppiness turned on, and Harvard crept up, passed them, and never looked back. The Eagles had no answers for Harvard, but Harvard always had an answer for the Eagles. The Crimson played hard, the Eagles played tense, as if they were mindful that they had lost to this team twice before. The end result is another disaster."
The 3rd Time Isn't The Charm: Another Bad Loss to Harvard (Around The Res)
"I've said in previous posts that this team lives and dies by the three but that wasn't the case tonight. The Eagles shot over 50% from the floor, including 38.9% from 3pt range. Instead turnovers, shoddy defense - especially when a key stop is needed - and an inability to get to the foul line (Harvard was 23/24 as compared to 4/8 for the Eagles) are to blame."
It might have been a bit unavoidable given the timing of BC's firing of Al Skinner and subsequent coaching search, but shouldn't Gene look to remove these Ivy League games from the schedule over the next few years? Harvard seems to be in BC's head, and both Yale and Harvard (and other Ivies) are certainly going to get up for playing a former Ivy League coach who won three straight league titles before jumping to the ACC. There's not a whole lot to be gained from playing these games. BC wins and they should have won, lose and the comparisons begin (scholarship athletes vs. non-schollies, Donahue vs. his former league, etc.). There are plenty of other scrub hoops teams in the Northeast to load up on in non-conference play, right?
The good news is that BC has rebounded from this type of loss once this season already. If you had to choose one ACC team to play to pick yourself up off the mat and get back in the win column, ... it's Wake Forest. But, if you had to choose a second ACC team, it would be Georgia Tech, and that's exactly who the Eagles will host on Saturday.