Not much is expected of the 2016 Eagles as they head off to Washington, DC for the ACC Tournament, but this gives us a chance to relive one of the great BC teams of all time...via VHS tape!
The year was 1982 and the beast that was to quickly grow into the most competitive conference in the country, the Big East, was just in its third season. The original seven, predominantly Catholic institutions (Boston College, Connecticut, Georgetown, Providence, Seton Hall, St John's and Syracuse) had logically expanded to Philadelphia in year two and tabbed Eastern 8 power Villanova as their eighth member.
The conference's first league tournament was held in the city of the league headquarters, Providence, while the second iteration took place in the Carrier Dome at Syracuse.
For the 1982 version, the site would be the Hartford Civic Center and from there, onto Madison Square Garden, where it still resides today, albeit very different from what we knew it as then.
Boston College entered the tournament at 18-8 overall and 8-6 in the league, good for fourth place in the regular season. This drew the Eagles the defending tournament champion Orangemen, a very dangerous five seed, who finished just a game behind BC at 7-7 and 15-11 overall.
BC, led by Coach Tom Davis and Big East Player of the Year, John Bagley, trailed by as many as 10 points in the first half and were down eight, with just 1:58 remaining before running off the last 10 points of the game, the winning basket on a Dwan Chandler 16 foot jump shot with three seconds left, to defeat Syracuse 94-92.
Bagley lived up to his POY status with an Eagle team high 27 points, while five others reached double figures as BC scored 61 second half points and forced the Orangemen into 27 turnovers, 13 of them by SU point/forward, Leo Rautins.
How different is this game from what you see today? Let's see. BC scored 94 points without a three point shot and took 72 shots in the game. The Eagles gave up 70.5% to Syracuse from the field..and won. Officially, both teams combined for 53 fast break points. In the BC-NC State game last week, both teams combined for 16.
The tape, just like the St John's game we posted earlier this year, is one of a kind. It was also filmed from a couple of different vantage points during the game as the Eagle managers filming the game got moved around!
BC would go on to drop a close semifinal game to top seeded Villanova and hang on the precipice of an NCAA tournament birth at 19-9 before making a run all the way to the Elite Eight.
The Eagles would get the #8 seed in what was a 48 team field and gather wins over #9 San Francisco, 70-66, the tournament's #2 overall seed, DePaul (82-75) and #5 Kansas State (69-65) in the Sweet Sixteen before finally losing to Guy Lewis, Clyde Drexler, Akeem Abdul Olajuwon and the University of Houston, 99-92, at the St Louis Checkerdome, in the Midwest Regional Championship game.
As a bonus, here is a link to a Google doc page where the official game box score and running score are posted. These days those are on every school's website, in the day though, if you weren't at the arena and had access to press row, you had no idea what these were.
Enjoy the game and Go Eagles!