Boston College 66, Wake Forest 63: Eagles Earn Ugly Victory Over Deacons; Split Season Series

The Boston College Eagles suffered a tough loss at home to the Duke Blue Devils. It looked like they were on their way to another "moral victory" on Wednesday night, but then something changed. Steve Donahue and Co. rallied and erased a late deficit to scratch out a 66-63 win against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons.

Lonnie Jackson said that this "wasn't the most beautiful thing, but it was a win." I nominate that sentence as understatement of the year.

This was not the most beautiful thing. In fact, it was probably the most hideous thing. But it was a win and that's what the Eagles needed.

BC came out on fire and jumped out to a big lead. But then they realized that they were Boston College and Wake fought their way back into the game. Ryan Anderson had a pretty brutal game and neither team managed to get into any sort of offensive flow. It was a game full of mistakes and terrible fouls and boneheaded passes.

If you haven't noticed by now, when Anderson doesn't play well, BC tends to struggle all game. It makes things so much more difficult when Anderson can't score consistently in the paint and open things up for Olivier Hanlan and Joe Rahon. Speaking of Rahon, I thought he played a pretty solid game. He seemed to be strong with the ball and made a confident move to draw a foul when BC needed it the most. Then, he shook off an elbow stinger to knock down 2 clutch free throws.

Where BC crumbled against Duke, they thrived against Wake. Needing to force a turnover or foul to get the ball back with 33 seconds, BC played about 6 seconds of great defense to prevent Wake from crossing halfcourt. And then the ref blew the play dead because the clock didn't start. This young, struggling BC team could have quit right there after Wake got another chance to in-bound the ball and ice the game. But instead, they cranked it up a notch and forced a 5-second violation to get the ball back. That was the biggest point of the game and the Eagles finally showed that they could handle it.

I'll try to write more about this game tomorrow but all you NEGNANs can calm down for the night.