Boston College
Massachusetts
No. 11 Men's Basketball Downs UMass, 91-62
January 03, 2006 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 3, 2006
CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. (AP) -- Craig Smith scored 17 points and Sean Williams added two skyscraping blocked shots on Tuesday night as No. 11 Boston College beat Massachusetts 91-62 -- the Eagles' seventh straight victory over their cross-state rival.
Playing in just his fourth game since returning from a suspension for a marijuana arrest, Williams had a crowd-pleasing follow-up dunk with 8:36 left for his only points of the game. But it was his first-half block of Rashaun Freeman that electrified the crowd and sparked BC to a 16-6 run that put the game out of reach.
Sean Marshall scored 18 points and Jared Dudley and Tyrese Rice each had 14 apiece to help BC (11-2) win its fifth straight game since losing two in a row. The Eagles resume play in their inaugural Atlantic Coast Conference season on Sunday at Georgia Tech.
Freeman had 18 points and 10 rebounds, and Stephane Lasme had 12 and nine for UMass (5-5). The Minutemen open Atlantic 10 play at Duquesne on Saturday.
UMass led 18-14 with 10:38 left in the first half before BC scored 13 of the next 15 points. Smith scored eight in the run, the last two after Williams picked Freeman's shot out of the air and pinned it against the backboard.
After Freeman made a basket with 5:18 left, Rice hit a 3-pointer for BC. Williams blocked Jeff Viggiano at the other end and then Rice added another 3 to make it 33-22.
In all, BC outscored UMass 27-8 over the last 10:12 of the half.
BC coach Al Skinner was a teammate of Julius Erving at UMass. Skinner's No. 30 was retired when the Eagles played at Amherst in 2004.
BC and UMass, separated by about two hours, rarely played until the Commonwealth Classic was created in 1995. The Minutemen were led by NBA prospect Marcus Camby when they won the first game at the FleetCenter with then-Gov. Bill Weld looking on; UMass won the next four years as well.
But interest waned and after four years the game moved to campus sites. The Minutemen have also fallen on hard times and haven't earned the state's bragging rights since the 1999-2000 season.
