Men’s Basketball Final: Boston College 72 Albany 51

The Eagles looked to start a winning streak of their own against the University of Albany on Tuesday night after coming away with a surprise upset against Notre Dame in South Bend a few days prior. At the start of the game, it did not seem so promising. BC’s offense failed to click and it seemed like another instance of deja vu in terms of a lack of consistency in shot selection. Derryk Thornton was extremely cold on the floor as he would end up going to the locker room at the half with a goose egg in points. Meanwhile, the Danes appeared to be exposing the BC in the paint and it seemed like the pains of Popovic’s absence were going to show their true colors as CJ Felder was having a tough time holding down the paint. Albany had a few opportunities to take a commanding lead in the first, but, thanks to the help of a few clutch threes from the likes of Jay Heath and Julian Rishwain, BC was able to head into halftime only trailing by one.

The second half was a real doozy, in a good way. I don’t know what type of “Miracle” type speech Coach Christian gave the team in the locker room but it certainly kicked the team into the right gear. The Eagles would come out with much more ferocity and intensity on both ends of the floor and completely stall the successes of Albany’s two best guards, Cameron Healy and Ahmad Clark. BC was able to go on multiple digit scoring runs and force Albany into some ugly scoring droughts. Not to mention, the defense of Steffon Mitchell was impeccable. He was able to secure 5 steals against the Danes and help his team in combining for 24 points off of turnovers. Also, for the record, BC did not turn the ball over once in the second half. I guess good things do happen when you can hold onto the ball huh?

It’s clear that there are still are a lot of things that need tweaking with this team. The thorn in my side continues to be the dreadful free throw shooting with the Eagles finishing 18-30 from the stripe. Furthermore, BC has clearly shown that they want to be steadily reliant on the three and it just has not been much of a recipe for success. Against the Danes, the Eagles shot 10-32 from beyond the arc. Not exactly atrocious, but I think some of those possessions could have been used to set up some more high percentage shots from either around the elbow or deep in the paint.

Aside from my nit-pickiness, the Eagles were still able to get back to above .500 on the season as they look forward to their next contest against Central Connecticut on Sunday with tip-off set for 1 PM.