Boston College Men’s Basketball: Previewing the Tarheels

After having the last two games cancelled due to COVID-19 protocols, the Boston College Men’s basketball team looks forward to finally tipping off against the UNC Tarheels after a two week hiatus. As painful as it may be to look at the last outing by the Eagles, I think it is still important to take a trip back into the end of 2021 and see where things currently stand for the Eagles.

The last matchup for the Eagles was a tough pill to swallow as the Eagles dropped a home contest against the Albany Great Danes, 61-57. Despite being +16 underdogs, Albany was a well-oiled machine on the defensive side of the ball and the Eagles could not seem to get anything clicking offensively. Seemingly nobody besides Jaeden Zackery from the Eagles wanted to pull out the win as the Eagles committed turnover after turnover, and a plethora of poor shot selection. Granted a small comeback from BC was had, only for it to be halted by some insanely lucky shots to seal Albany’s greatest win of the season to date.

After this rough loss, the Eagles were set to finally begin conference play against Wake Forest before violations of COVID protocols committed by the Eagles had to result in them postponing the contest. Since then, the Eagles were also forced to push out their game against Florida State thus leading them to where they are now scheduled to play UNC at Conte this Sunday afternoon.

A quick examination of the Tar Heels is pretty much as you would expect. In his first season at the helm, Hubert Davis has coached his team to a 9-3 start with their only losses coming at the hands of some damn good competition: Purdue, Tennessee and Kentucky. Most recently, they are coming off of a win against Appalachian State before the Christmas holiday before they too had to postpone their first ACC contest against Virginia Tech.

In looking ahead to the outcome of this game, Boston College is certainly coming in as the underdog in this matchup. UNC currently is fourth in the conference in PPG with 78.6 and second in RPG with 39.9 thanks primarily to their 6’10” Forward Armando Bacot who is averaging nearly 10 rebounds per game himself. UNC is also second in the ACC in Field Goal percentage drilling ~48% of their attempted shots.

With this type of consistency coming from the Tarheels, and the inconsistency of Boston College, I simply do not see a way in which BC can pull out the win to start the New Year. But hey, New Year New Team right? I guess anything can be possible.

Prediction: UNC 82 vs. Boston College 68