Boston College 88, Dartmouth 70: Observations From BC’s Win

Observations from BC’s 88-70 Win over Dartmouth

• Team-ball fuels BC win

The Eagles moved the ball around en route to a season-high 23 assists. They controlled the game right from the get-go, albeit against a much lesser opponent. Jim Christian has to be happy about the ball movement and BC will need to do this much more moving forward if they want to compete in ACC play, rather than just relying on this guy:

• As Jerome Robinson goes, so does BC

The second-year guard put up a career-high 27 points for the second straight game, this time in a BC win, on 10-16 shooting from the field (4-7 from three). Robinson is among the top of ACC players in both points and steals so far this season, and he’s been the catalyst of BC’s offense. He very well could end up being version 2.0 of Olivier Hanlan, who also averaged around 19 points per game in his best season at BC.
Robinson has been creating his own shot, coming off screens as a spot up shooter, and creating plays on offense through drives to the hoop. He’s averaging about 11 more points than the next highest scorer, AJ Turner. It looks like the Eagles will be counting on Robinson for 20+ points on a nightly basis to keep them in games.

• The new guys are important contributors

The next two highest scorers behind Robinson were Ty Graves, a freshman, and Jordan Chatman, a transfer, in the win over Dartmouth. They both contributed off the bench on a combined 5-6 from three-point range. Other newcomers this year include three of BC’s starters in the win: Ky Bowman, another freshman, and Mo Jeffers and Connor Tava, both transfers. Although they all look like mere members of the supporting cast for now, Bowman and Graves have both given some hope for the future of Boston College’s program and all the newcomers could certainly be bigger contributors when better opponents start to focus their defensive efforts on Robinson.

• Where is Garland Owens?

Garland played a total of 1 minute in BC’s win. It seemed like he did have a role on the team in previous games, never playing less than 10 minutes, but he clearly wasn’t part of the game-plan against Dartmouth. His athleticism is helpful in keeping up the pace of the team, but clearly Christian is starting to favor some of the newcomers, such as freshman Ky Bowman. Garland’s the only guy on the team who’s been at BC all four of his eligible years, so his being phased out of the offense is probably a testament to what Christian thinks of the new guys.

• BC in for rude awakening in ACC play

Hate to be a pessimist after a dominant win, but the win over Dartmouth, and the wins over Towson, Maryland Eastern-Shore, and Stony Brook, for that matter, haven’t inspired much hope for BC going into ACC play. These opponents are clearly worse than most (if not all) ACC teams the Eagles are going to run into, but that isn’t necessarily a huge problem because BC is getting the job done. The real problem is the reliance on Jerome Robinson, who is going to be shut down by top-level ACC defenders at some point. He’s been great so far, but for BC to compete in the ACC then the supporting cast, including A.J. Turner, Ky Bowman, Mo Jeffers, and Co., really need to step up and contribute more than they’ve done so far.

• Conte Forum will suffer low attendance until after winter break

This picture just about says it all:

It’ll probably look like that for most of the games at Conte Forum this year. There is, however, a real chance this is changed drastically, because after the students get back from winter break BC will have home games against Virginia, North Carolina, Wake Forest, Louisville, Pittsburgh, and Notre Dame all in a row. If the Eagles can just manage to play well through winter break and maybe grab a couple ACC wins, the arena should be pretty well-filled in the second half of the season. Until we see that, though, there’ll probably be a lot of pictures like that one in the near future.