Boston College Defeats Maine, 85-74

For the first time in nearly two full calendar years, since Boston College strung together five consecutive non-conference wins to close out 2012, the BC men's basketball team has put together a three-game winning streak. Baby steps on the road to recovery?

The Eagles downed America East foe Maine 85-74 tonight at Conte Forum to pick up the third straight win. With the victory, BC is now two games over .500 at 5-3—an honor they never held once the entirety of last season. With three winnable home games coming up the next few weeks—vs. struggling Binghamton, a tougher but still doable game against USC, followed by UMass-Lowell—BC has the potential now to possibly go on a run here and enter conference play with a strong record.

(Your Don't Get Too Excited reminder: Maine is now 1-8 after tonight's loss. And the victory over Providence may have lost a little bit of its shine after the Friars lost to Brown this week. But still. Wins. Wins!)

All you Clifford-maniacs out there will be happy to know that the Big Maroon Dog lived up to the long-frustrated hopes of BC fans in this performance, putting in 19 points and adding 7 rebounds. It was one of Clifford's best performances in a BC uniform.

Aaron Brown led the way overall with 21 for the Eagles. Brown and Clifford were among five players with double digit scoring for BC, joined by Patrick Heckmann, Dmitri Batten, and Olivier Hanlan. Hanlan added six assists to his 10 points.

In other promising news, the Eagles have put together some wins at leass than full strength, and there may be help on the way. Eddie Odio has missed the past two games with a concussion. Lonnie Jackson, promisingly, was in uniform tonight and participated in some team activities, though he ultimately did not play. However, there's hope that both could be back in there sooner rather than later, which would only add some more depth and options to a team that right now has a lot of players starting to find themselves.

Next up for the Eagles: Binghamton on Sunday at Conte Forum. Binghamton suffered another heavy defeat tonight, 65-44 to Colgate. They are now 1-10 on the year, so safe to say the expectation is that BC won't let up and will be able to tack on another W.

It hasn't been a gauntlet to start the season but overall, you've got to give Jim Christian and crew high marks for their first few months on the job.