Boston College Men’s Basketball: Q&A With Shakin’ The Southland

The Boston College Eagles are hosting the Clemson Tigers Saturday at Conte Forum. We reached out to our friends at Shakin’ The Southland, SB Nation’s blog dedicated to Clemson, who were kind enough to answer our questions:

1. For those of us less familiar with Clemson hoops, give us a brief rundown of how the season has been so far?

Oh man, where to begin? Well, the team looked good in some of the early season action. Had a nice win over Temple in the Thanksgiving tourney in Charleston before dropping a close one to St. Bonaventure and then again to West Virginia. Clemson beat beat a short handed South Carolina team, beat Virginia by 17, then had the Duke game postponed for covid and proceeded to lose to Virginia by 15. ACC play has been fairly rough. I’m sure y’all remember the blown double lead against BC in Littlejohn. The “high” point was probably a 2 point loss at Cameron Indoor Stadium, because the Clemson-Duke game in Clemson was 2 weeks away, and that effort made it seem like we could steal one from Duke in Littlejohn. That didn’t happen. We’ve had some pretty flat games, a heart breaker vs UNC, and were blown out by the Duke game. Wednesday’s win over Wake was a welcomed surprise.

2. PJ Hall appears to be the straw that stirs the offensive drink for Clemson. What should we expect from him, and who else should we keep an eye on?

PJ is actually hurt right now. He went down in the early part of the loss to Louisville. He didn’t play in the win over Wake Forest, and shockingly we won. It’ll probably be a game time decision if he plays against BC, but my guess is we hold him for at least one more game. Because of our lack or depth in the post, he’s a guy that plays almost 40 min a game. It’s a huge loss for us.

3. One thing that jumped out at me was that there are like nine players on the team with substantive minutes. How should the rotation look for the Tigers?

Without PJ, we played 8 in the Wake Forest win. I expect to see a lot of the same vs BC, save for a blowout game. Chase Hunter had maybe the best game of his career against the Deacs. Expect to see him, Nick Honor, and David Collins at guard, plus Al Amir Dawes get some burn, with Alex Hemenway coming off the bench as the three point threat. The bigs are young. Ian Schiefflin is a freshman was was getting about two minutes a game until the GT game. I like what I’ve seen from him. Ben Middlebrooks is another freshman who is taking the place of PJ Hall. Another guy who’s pretty green. We’ll see what he does. Naz Bohannon also gives us some good work at forward off the bench. He was an early season starter.

4. How do you think Clemson will win? How will they lose?

If we we’ll need some scoring. I don’t like us in a close game, so I think we need a game where shots are falling and we get momentum going early, and unlike the first matchup, keep it rolling. I think if we lose it’s by Boston College exposing the youth in the post.

5. Prediction time! What are ya thinking?

Ahhhh, this is so tough. If you’d asked me before Wednesday I’d have said BC easily. I guess I’m a bit high off last night’s win, so I’ll say Tigers 78-72.

Thank you to Matt_Goldin and Shakin’ The Southland for stopping by to chat. You can find Matt on Twitter @MattFG53 and Shakin’ The Southland @STSouthland.