Virginia 65, Boston College 51: Eagles Fall To Cavaliers In Charlottesville

The Boston College Eagles have had some moral victories is recent ACC games. They almost beat the Miami Hurricanes. They almost beat Alex Len and the Maryland Terrapins. They almost beat the North Carolina State Wolfpack. On Saturday afternoon, they were looking for an actual victory. But, that didn't happened. After hanging around and actually leading 26-24 at halftime, the Eagles got blasted in the second half on the road against the Virginia Cavaliers.

The Good

The first half was relatively good. Despite falling down 10-2 early, the Eagles showed some fight and gave Virginia a good battle. Lonnie Jackson hit some big threes (his shooting stroke is so pretty) and even Danny Rubin was able to contribute some shots off the bench.

Eddie Odio continues to give some quality minutes off the bench. This team sorely lacks athleticism so anytime you can get someone like Odio to give you energy minutes, you'll take it.

Olivier Hanlan didn't shoot the ball well, but I love how he attacks the basket. He stays aggressive until the final buzzer and is really the only guy who can consistently beat opponents off the dribble.

The Bad

The interior defense for the Eagles was pretty pathetic. The Cavaliers got easy buckets at will. One of the keys of the game was to keep Virginia from bombing away from deep. BC managed to do that, but didn't remember to stop anybody once they got into the paint. Virginia scored 40 points in the paint and was shooting something like 75% from the floor in the second half. The offense wasn't good by any stretch, but BC's defense was once again the main reason that they lost the game.

BC was telegraphing their shots pretty badly. Every time they got into the paint, Virginia made a hard contest on the shot and/or blocked it back into their faces.

BC also stopped shooting threes in the second half. They were 5 of 14 from deep at the break (which isn't that good, but still). In the second half, they shot just 2 of 8 from deep (with a few of those in solid garbage time). This is a team that needs to shoot (and make) threes to win a lot of games. And you can't make threes if you don't keep shooting them. Let it fly.

The Ugly

Ryan Anderson had a roughhhhh day. He was just 5 of 14 from the field and grabbed only 5 rebounds. He also committed five turnovers in the first half. As I said before, Virginia was blocking shots by the bucket load and many of them came on Anderson's attempts.

The Road Ahead

BC hopes to get back on track this Tuesday when they host the North Carolina Tarheels at Conte Forum at 9 PM. That should be fun.