Thursday Three-Pointer: Week Eight

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. -- Under a minute remained on Tuesday night when a Jay Heath drive-and-dish led to the dagger from Jared Hamilton on Tuesday night against defending National Champion Virginia. Heath stood at the top of the key in a one-on-one situation against Kihei Clark, backing down the defender with a move to his right, then his left. The freshman bounced the defender back, enabling a turnaround look at the basket.

It was a move Heath employed over the entire night, and in the last moments of a tie basketball game, the Cavaliers finally adjusted. Braxton Key shifted to the paint to prevent a turnaround drive, leaving Hamilton wide open in the corner in front of his bench. In mid-air, Heath saw Hamilton and fed him a pass that the forward caught and shot in stride.

The Conte Forum explosion drowned any sound of the ball hitting the bottom of the net, but nobody needed that brand of validation. Everyone knew what happened; the 3-pointer gave BC a lead with 30 seconds left, the final nail in the 60-53 victory over the Cavaliers.

"Time was running down and I just wanted to get a good shot," Heath said. "I was getting into the lane the whole game, so Virginia started to collapse on me. I saw Jared in the corner, and he hit that three."

It was a comeback performance for a program smarting from its 39-point blowout nadir against Duke last week. That blowout was the worst in BC's series against the Blue Devils, but it felt disastrous for a number of other reasons. The offense only shot 38 percent from the floor and went 3-for-18 on three-pointers. Duke scored 44 points in the paint - almost as much as the entire BC team - and registered seven blocks. The Devils shot 43 percent on their own threes, which would have been tough to hold off even if the Eagles didn't shoot 4-of-11 on free throws.

Point guard Derryck Thornton sustained an ankle injury, compounding a medical list already occupied by center Nik Popovic. With arguably the nation's best defensive team on tap in Virginia, it didn't exactly ring an endorsement for BC's chances, even with a full week to prepare.

"We're playing great teams in this league," head coach Jim Christian said. "If you dwell too much on one game, you're going to really struggle. So once the final buzzer sounded at Duke, we had to start getting ready for the next game. I'm a fan of a lot of teams, and I live and die with each game. But as coaches and players in the ACC, you have to move on and get better. The next team comes into the game just as hungry, and they're not feeling sorry for anybody."

It all galvanized the Eagles into banding together for a complete team performance. Heath finished 6-of-8 from the floor with three three-pointers, and Hamilton scored 16 points. Steffon Mitchell, who suffered from flu-like symptoms throughout the day, had 10 points, seven rebounds, two steals and three blocks in an end-to-end performance. And Jairus Hamilton continued his breakout sophomore campaign in the front court with 10 points and seven rebounds.

"We had the benefit of time to get ready for this game," Christian said. "We had to get the Duke game out of our system and understand what works. It's shot selection. There are games where (a team) doesn't play well, and it never stopped. Whether we won or lost (the Virginia game), we improved. We played well from the first possession of the game. Everyone moved the ball and understood what we were trying to get at from sets that we were running."

Here's what else can be taken away from BC's big win at Conte Forum.

1) In the Zone
Virginia won the national championship last year by maintaining brutal efficiency against opponents. Its hallmark reputation stems from having the best defense in the country, but a half-court, tempo-based offense protects the basketball by limiting mistakes. It's technically beautiful because it's a basketball chess match, and the Eagles earned checkmate by outsmarting the Cavaliers into their weaknesses.

"They're such a good team, especially coming out of timeouts," Jim Christian said. "So we tried to change looks. They do an unbelievable job of figuring out how you're guarding and how to counter it. If you give them a steady diet, they're going to carve it up. So we just wanted to change looks. We full court pressed a couple of times early, diamond pressed, and three-quarter court pressed. None of it was aggressive, but it was just to take them out of rhythm. They did the same to us in the second half; that's how the games are in this league. There are constant changes."

BC's biggest shift adjusted from man-to-man to zone and back on the fly. The defense collapsed back into a 1-2-2 or 1-3-1 set, forcing Clark to mostly go to his right against Jay Heath. The forced movement stacked both Jay Huff and Mamadi Diakite in the paint, which drew someone away from the basket into the high post.

Both Jairus Hamilton and Steffon Mitchell worked in tandem against that ball side and executed switches on high screens to prevent slashes to the basket. Neither Diakite nor Huff could do anything from there, and it didn't force double teams to open up shooters on the wing. It all but negated the three ball, which Virginia is struggling with anyways this year.

"They did a couple of things, like pressing off a free throw," Virginia head coach Tony Bennett said. "They went to zone, switched to man-to-man, or stayed in zone for multiple passes. That's a little different, but they showed mostly man-to-man. We didn't capitalize, and they made us stay in until the shot clock went down. They kept us guessing."

2) The Flu Game
Game Five of the 1997 NBA Finals is one of professional basketball's greatest games. With the series tied 2-2, the Utah Jazz took a seven point first quarter lead at home over the Chicago Bulls but fell helpless as Michael Jordan dropped 38 points despite playing with the flu. It was an iconic moment for the game, and the lasting image of Jordan collapsing into Scottie Pippen's arms after the game is an indelible image of an athlete's competitive streak.

Steffon Mitchell isn't Michael Jordan (let's face it - nobody is), but he probably could've related to the legend on Tuesday morning when he woke up vomiting. Migraines only made it worse, and he missed the walkthrough as trainers tended to his body. As his teammates went through pregame warmup lines, Mitchell had just finished up his IV lines, struggling through an individualized workout but cleared enough physically to warrant insertion into the BC starting lineup.

He responded with the aforementioned stat line.

"I didn't know about Steff until five minutes before the game," Christian said. "He didn't go to the walkthrough, so I didn't think he was going to play. Our medical staff did a great job to get him an IV and get him ready to play. We didn't know. I was telling Jared (Hamilton) that I didn't know what position he would play, but we just had to go play."

Mitchell's tenacity adds a layer into the latest chapter in his development. His defensive effort with Jairus Hamilton neutralized anything from Virginia's vaunted frontcourt, and he rallied from earlier missed free throws to sink shots when it mattered most later after the go-ahead triple from Jared Hamilton.

"There's a beauty to it," Christian said. "It's effort, determination and character. He doesn't let things bother him, and he's matured. He missed a free throw or an open shot, and it would take him out of the game emotionally. But now he's playing to win. Everyone who stepped on the floor put their heart into it, and we won the game."

Just to bury the lede, Mitchell did have his Jordan moment at the end of the game. When Kody Stattmann fouled Jared Hamilton to send him to the line with four seconds left, Mitchell stood in the backcourt. He turned to the BC fans underneath the basket, flexed, and unleashed a rebel yell. He was alone when he did it, and it became the final image of a big time victory for the program.

3) Virginia is for lovers (of good basketball)
Beating Virginia requires plenty of things to go right. One of those checkboxes is an off day for the Cavaliers, which happened against BC. Virginia held opponents under 30 percent shooting in its first three games of the season and didn't allow a team to hit 40 percent until its sixth game, against Arizona State.

"We didn't stop guarding, but we played one possession at a time," Christian said. "This was a terrific defensive team. You shoot 45 percent against Virginia, you're executing. You're taking good shots and hitting them. You can't have wasted possessions, which we emphasized all week coming out of the Duke game."

The Eagles shot 44.7 percent and were three made baskets away from becoming the second team to shoot 50 percent or better against the Virginia defense. It was a clear step back after the visitors held Virginia Tech to 27 percent from the floor in a 65-39 victory and a rare moment in Tony Bennett's history with the program. There have been only 43 games - a fraction over 12 percent of all games in his tenure - where a team actually hit half or more of the shots taken, so even creeping near the list is an exceptional rarity.

"We need to play with alertness, readiness and with position," Bennett said. "But in transition, we were losing guys. (The errors) were self-inflicted, and we had too many of those to overcome. I thought we played with great heart, passion and intensity against Virginia Tech, but I didn't see that in the way it needed to be (against BC). You have to bring a composure and effort level that looked like it was lukewarm."

Layup Line: Anyone Can Conquer
Winning a national championship creates a significant spike in a team's buzz and popularity, so Conte Forum brimmed with an electric atmosphere on Tuesday. Fans of both teams poured into the arena, creating a clash of cheers when the game wore down the stretch. The fans poured into one another, and it was a "We've got spirit, yes we do" chant away from feeling like an Indiana gymnasium straight out of Hoosiers.

It brought a life to Conte Forum, and a home team victory helped the vast majority of attendees head home happy. It showed the importance of home court advantage, which for BC this year is a big reason why the team is 3-1 and sitting near the top of the ACC standings into the middle of January.

"We're trying to do everything everyone else is doing in this league," Jim Christian said. "I have so much respect for Virginia. They have a Hall of Fame coach and kids who won the National Championship. But we came to win this game."

BC's win continued an upset order of the early season ACC standings. Eleven of the league's 15 teams have one or two losses, creating an unprecedented logjam of parity. Duke leads the pack with a 3-0 record, but Virginia's loss dropped the Cavaliers into a statistical tie with Florida State, Louisville and Boston College. Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech are a game back with 2-2 records, and Notre Dame, North Carolina, NC State, Wake Forest and Pittsburgh all sit within striking distance.

It's a weird year in the ACC when Syracuse and Clemson are teams that played in postseason basketball last year but sit at the bottom of the league. But it also highlights the opportunity facing BC against Georgia Tech this weekend. The slow start by several power players opened the door for any team willing to capitalize to fill the void. It also underscores the importance of holding serve against opponents and the requirement of creating an atmosphere worthy of making Conte Forum a dangerous place for teams coming to Boston.

"There's going to be a lot of teams that lose at Duke," Christian said. "But we're 3-1 in the league. We have a road win, and we're fortunate enough to defend our home court. It's a great momentum builder, but we're not surprised we won this basketball game. We played to win."

Overtime: Stingers
That Georgia Tech is 2-2 in conference play is shocking to some because of its 7-7 overall record. The Yellow Jackets shocked NC State to start the season and continued an offensive rolling of Tobacco Road with a 96-83 win over an injury-depleted North Carolina team. Even if experts expected a loss to nationally-ranked Florida State, it's already becoming a wild ride for teams with significant losing streaks during the regular season.

The wins for the Yellow Jackets came in bunches, which makes predicting them even more difficult. Two straight wins opened the season, but consecutive losses to Georgia and Arkansas rolled them back to .500. Two more consecutive wins pushed the team to 4-2, but it lost three straight in a stretch that included a 12-point defeat to Kentucky.

That three game losing streak turned into four of out of five with a loss to Houston, but the win over Hawaii gave the team two wins in three games on the back end of the streak. The FSU game meant Georgia Tech lost seven of its last 11 games, but beating UNC gave it two wins in its last three games again, and three in its last five.

That makes this game impossible to predict. There will be a game against Duke on Wednesday night that, with a massive upset, gives the team a 2-1 record in its last three games while jumping into the top tier of the ACC. A loss continues the trend of win-loss-win-loss heading into a toss-up game against BC on the road.

Saturday's game tips off at Conte Forum at 6 p.m. The game will be televised on ACC Network with radio broadcast available through the BC IMG Sports Radio Network.

Players Mentioned

Jairus Hamilton

Jared Hamilton

Jay Heath

Steffon Mitchell

Nik Popovic

Derryck Thornton

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