Syracuse 70, Boston College 56: Eagles Drop Fifth Straight

The Eagles fell to Syracuse tonight at Conte Forum with a final score of 70-56. BC started out shooting well and took an early lead on Syracuse, where they made their first three 3-point attempts. Aaron Brown started off hot, hitting his first two, and Olivier Hanlan hit his first, but the Eagles lost their early lead on a Michael Gbinije layup that put Syracuse up 12-11 with 11:32 to play in the first half. From that point on the Eagles trailed the rest of the game.

The game was not a blowout by any means, as the largest lead for Syracuse came with 3:38 to play when they lead by 17.

There were stretches of the game where BC looked really bad or Syracuse looked really good, depending on how you want to look at it. For example, check the Syracuse play by play for a 3 minute stretch starting with 8:30 to play in the game.

Michael Gbinije made dunk. Assisted by Kaleb Joseph.
Kaleb Joseph made dunk.
Michael Gbinije missed jumper. Michael Gbinije offensive rebound. Michael Gbinije made layup.
Trevor Cooney made two free throws.
Rakeem Christmas steal. Kaleb Joseph made dunk.

It's sections of the game tonight like this that deflate fans and lead Boston College to a 1-10 ACC conference record.  During that 3-minute stretch, the Syracuse lead only went from 6 points to 10 points, but the Syracuse lead grew after that. The possibility of a comeback seemed to leave Conte Forum with the momentum clearly shifting dramatically over to Syracuse.

Aaron Brown was the Eagles' leading scorer tonight with 19, followed by Olivier Hanlan with 16. Jim Christian played 10 players tonight as Will Magarity got back into the mix after missing 2 games with a concussion, but he only saw 6 minutes of action so it is doubtful that Christian felt he was 100%. Alex Dragicevich, who you may remember as the Notre Dame transfer that was often referred to as the best player in practice by those who were either close to the rumor mill or watching BC practices during the 2012-13 season, managed to get on the court tonight for 2 minutes of action. On a positive note though, BC shot 100% from the free throw line on 8 attempts.

Four of five BC starters, including Dennis Clifford, played more than 30 minutes. It is encouraging to see that Clifford was able to go for more than 30, but BC's late game fatigue seems to be getting worse as the season goes on and it is a shame that the starters did not get more rest in what resulted in a 14-point loss.

Next up: Miami Sunday at 6:30.