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Stop me if you've heard this before. Infinitely winnable game against middling ACC opponent results in another close loss for the Boston College men's basketball team. This time it was a 76-73 overtime loss to a reeling Notre Dame team dropping the Eagles to 6 up and 15 down on the year.
6 and 15.
Boston College controlled much of the game until a dumb Olivier Hanlan foul sent the game to overtime. Irish senior guard Eric Atkins, who earlier had a chance to win the game in regulation at the charity stripe, hit a three-pointer with one second remaining to give Notre Dame a 76-73 victory over BC.
Of course.
Like Bill, I'm not going to pile it on at this point. There's no need. If you weren't completely numb to the myriad of ways this team loses up until this point in the season, you surely couldn't care less after this afternoon's outcome.
With the loss, the Eagles are now 1-7 in road games this season. That challenging road/neutral schedule Donahue put together was meant to prepare the team for games like this, yet the Eagles road/neutral record is every bit as bad as it has been over the previous two seasons. Over the last three years, Boston College is 4-23 in road games; a record of performance that in all likelihood seals Donahue's fate.
Winning consistently on the road is no easy feat, but a .148 winning percentage in road games is comically bad; especially in a coach's third full season playing with a roster of talent he recruited.
The bad news is that of the ten games left in the regular season, six of them are on the road. Three of them are vs. teams ranked in the top 25 this week -- #17 Duke, @ #2 Syracuse, #18 Pittsburgh -- while a fourth is against a Virginia squad that is 7-1 in conference play. Last year the team seemingly turned a corner over the final 10 games of the season. Let's hope that they have something left in the tank before this miserable season mercifully comes to an end.