Men’s Basketball vs Sacred Heart: Final Thoughts and Predictions

Boston College (5-1) did its part in the ACC/Big-Ten Challenge by taking down Minnesota on Monday. Now Jim Christian’s squad hopes to build on the win streak and take on the Sacred Heart Pioneers (3-4), led by G Sean Hoehn.

Keys to the Game

BC has had such great ball movement (and off ball movement) since the IUPUI game. If they keep that up, they have a shot against almost anyone, even when Ky Bowman doesn’t have a perfect game (see: Minnesota). Absence of ball movement was one of the primary causes of the early-season struggles (the other was a total lack of energy on the boards, but you can’t coach that).

On top of that, if Wynston Tabbs and Nik Popovic both continue their run of form they showed against Minnesota this one won’t be close.

Sacred Heart’s Strengths

Points. Points, points, and more points. The ball movement is the Pioneers strength and it has them averaging a whopping 80 points per game. They have 4 players averaging 10+. They shoot 47% as a team. They’re 39th in the country with over 17 assists per game. This team plays good offensive basketball. While BC has been playing great defense, they’ve been admittedly a little lucky in their past few games when their opponents can’t hit shots. SHU will be a good chance for the squad to prove that it’s not just luck.

Pioneer Player To Watch

#22 G Sean Hoehn. The dude can ball, averaging 23.4 ppg and hits 38% from three on good volume (8 3PA per game). He leads the team in every scoring category and is the senior leader for an otherwise young group of guys.

Really, they’re young. Freshman Koreem Orzier averages 23 ppg but hasn’t played since the first two games for reasons I cannot find online. The other freshman guards, Aaron Clarke and Cameron Parker, can hold their own as well. Clarke contributes 12 ppg and Parker averages over 6 assists (he had 10 against Army!).

Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverage of the Game

I misspelled Pioneers as Pino-eers mulitple times when writing this article, so I’m going to recommend Pino’s since it was clearly a sign. Specifically, the Napoli Calzone, which they are happy to serve you unless you walk in to order right before closing at 1am (oops).

As for drink. I don’t know? Drink a Pepsi since they have an agreement with BC? We’ll save the good stuff for conference play.

Predictions

Matt: 76-59 BC

Toppin: 92-80 BC

Katie: 81-67 BC

Hoff: 84-66

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