There's just not much to say about tonight's effort by the Boston College men's basketball team to compete with Purdue. BC could not stop Purdue at all in the first half and managed to keep it close and have the lead 20-18. But then shots stopped falling and rebounding and turnovers became a bigger problem and Purdue went on a 21-3 run ending BC's chance of winning. BC had 23 points with plenty of time left in the first half yet the game was over. There was no sign that BC would be able to get a stop so a 15 poing deficit seemed like way too big of margin to overcome because of BC's complete inability to get stops. Defensive rotation was non-existent for the entire game and the Eagles continue to struggle rebounding on opponents free throw attempts. In the end it wrapped up to an 88-67 loss to Purdue for BC in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge.
Scoring for the Eagles it was the usual suspects of Ryan Anderson, Alex Dragicevich and Olivier Hanlan who combined for 44 points on 14 of 30 shooting. Purdue's top 3 scorers also combined for 44 points but they obviously had a much more balanced attack to lead to their 21 point victory.
The story line for this team was much of the same. The defense was horrible and the team just did not play well on the road. With only 3 road wins in the last 3 years, we really should not be surprised that the loud Mackey Arena crowd helped propel Purdue to an easy victory.
Throughout the game the ESPN2 announcers mentioned several times how BC's conference play begins in just 8 days. They said it in a way that it seems BC is not nearly ready for conference play right now and if you watched tonight, it is impossible to disagree with them.