Boston College Athletics
Photo by: Jaylynn Nash
Thursday Three-Pointer: Week Eleven
February 06, 2020 | Men's Basketball, #ForBoston Files
History nearly made at Conte Forum after a streak-breaking victory at the Dean Dome
CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. -- Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski understands better than anyone how Duke Basketball always draws national attention. His Blue Devils always command a white-hot spotlight at every stop. Every opponent gears up for the oncoming rush, a sign of respect to the team's ranking, seeding, and ability to draw fans from every corner of the globe.
It buoyed a warning to his team for its trip north this past Tuesday. A midweek game at Boston College wasn't anything to overlook and the Eagles would make the game a slugfest. Three seasons ago, Conte Forum exploded into a court-storming frenzy when BC upset the No. 1-ranked Blue Devils. Coach K knew it wasn't an accident, that a formula existed, that Jim Christian knew exactly how to prepare BC to fight a team vying for a No. 1 seed in the national tournament.
It triggered a combination of emotions, then, when BC opened the game with a 12-2 run.
"BC thoroughly outplayed in the first half," Krzyzewski said. "As much as we told our guys what to expect, we weren't ready for it. It's human nature, and we weren't ready to overcome it. BC was so good. We were lucky to (rally) to be down by three (at halftime)."
Duke eventually outlasted the Eagles late in the second half, but the game revealed a spirit and courage deep inside Conte Forum. In the first meeting of the season on New Year's Eve, the Blue Devils ran BC off of the Cameron Indoor Stadium court in an 88-49 blowout.
On Tuesday, it was BC's turn - with a capacity crowd chanting over the Duke supporters in attendance, and the building shaking from start to finish. The Eagles nearly pulled off a win that would have been anything but an upset. In an ACC defined by parity, it would have been a potential death knell to Duke's No. 1 seed hopes in the NCAA Tournament, a potential defining moment to the post-Jerome Robinson and post-Ky Bowman eras.Â
It is still conceivably all of that, even though it wasn't a win.
"Jim's team was so ready for us," Krzyzewski said. "They had Popovic back, and with all of their guys healthy, they're a really good team. They played great."
Here's the major takeaways from this week, in which BC defeated Duke's Tobacco Road rival, North Carolina:
1) Rock Fight
With just over 11 minutes remaining in the second half, Derryck Thornton penetrated into the teeth of the Duke defense. The Blue Devils aggressively attacked him, forcing a kickout pass to center Nik Popovic. Popovic, left wide open outside the arc, steadied himself and unloaded a shot at the hoop. He swished it, and Conte Forum experienced a euphoric, unconscious celebration as the Eagles retook the lead. Popovic himself felt the celebration, swinging his arm and rebel yelling his way back into defense.
It was a positively charged moment for Conte Forum. It was also the game's first 3-pointer after both teams missed their previous 26 attempts combined. The stat wasn't for a lack of effort or opportunity, but neither team held the combination lock code to crack the rim with those statistics.
"I'm signing up for those shots every time," BC head coach Jim Christian said. "Those were wide-open, three-point shots after penetration. Playing them, you have to attack the paint and make decisions with the basketball. We were finding the open shooters for step-in threes. We beat Duke a couple of years ago with the same kind of plays."
Both teams endured nights like this in the past; Duke shot poorly on threes against Brown, and BC couldn't get its offense going against Syracuse. Both teams rallied from those performances, so on Tuesday, neither team necessarily lost its confidence in taking shots. It was just a case where neither team could knock down shots both absolutely had to take.
"We didn't do anything different than we normally do," Christian said. "We were active, and we did well in transition. We did everything we were supposed to do. We just didn't finish, but effort and execution-wise, we did everything we needed to do to win the game."
"It wasn't a good three-point shooting night," Krzyzewski said. "Joey Baker really helped us. Tre (Jones) was outstanding down the stretch. Vernon (Carey) got that fourth foul early, and a lot went on during the night. We felt lucky to have that win; I don't know if we were completely deserving of winning or not, but we got it."
2) Popovic vs. Carey
Vernon Carey, Jr. is going to make an NBA franchise very happy. He's only 18 years old, but he's bigger and stronger than more physically mature basketball players. Carey's six feet, nine inches, with 270 pounds of pure muscle, and he possesses the rare combination of size, agility, speed and power. He's well on his way to the NBA Lottery and nobody should ever doubt it.
Carey's presence took on new meaning when the outside shooting went stone cold, but Nik Popovic turned it into must-watch theater. The senior went head-to-head with the freshman wunderkind, drawing him into mistakes, foul trouble and a poor night on both the shot chart and the rebounding glass.
"It's a position battle against a guy like Carey," Jim Christian said. "He gets deep and angles, and he's almost impossible to stop. Nik and Steffon Mitchell did a really good job getting him off his spot early, and then we rebounded the ball."
Carey finished with 17 points but finished just 5-of-13 from the floor. He had 10 rebounds, but only five came on the offensive glass against Mitchell, who grabbed nine defensive boards en route to a grand total of 12. A frontrunner for ACC Rookie of the Year and legit candidate for conference and national Player of the Year honors, Carey has been held in check in his two games against the Eagles. He is averaging 13.0 points while shooting 47.4% from the floor in those two games. Against all other opponents in 2019-20, Carey is scoring at an 18.3 points per game clip, connecting on just under 60% of his field goal attempts.
3) A Decade in the Making
The Duke game's intensity completely overshadowed the victory over North Carolina, which is saying something because wins against the Tar Heels are rare. Last week's win ended a 12-game losing streak dating back to 2010 and it was the team's third-ever victory at the Dean Smith Center.Â
The scoreline read a one-point victory, but the game didn't necessarily feel that close. The Tar Heels needed 22 free throws, including a 14-for-14 night from a returning freshman star Cole Anthony, to keep the score close, and their 36 percent shooting line didn't exactly breathe confidence into the game's final stretch.
UNC is experiencing a season unlike anything it has experienced in a long time. That said, the Tar Heels are still clearly a talented team and Anthony's return bolstered a lineup in need of an adrenaline injection. BC also beat a team starting to gather some momentum after consecutive victories over Miami and NC State.
Earning that win had clear downstream impacts. BC is very vividly in the middle of the ACC race, and the Duke loss proved how the Eagles can compete with anybody. The overall record is under .500, but places 5-14 in the ACC are completely up for grabs.Â
BC is 5-7, matching its conference win total from a year ago, and is two games out of a position for a first round bye in the ACC Tournament. Finishing fifth earns a bye to the Second Round with a game against the No. 12 or No. 13 seed.
The ACC is such that overall records really need to be thrown out of the window this year. The Eagles haven't earned a bye through the first round since the ACC expanded to 15 teams, though a number of asterisks exist through the years based on former formats.
Layup Line: Big One in Blacksburg
Wintertime is probably the weirdest time of my yearly schedule. Dates remain incredibly fluid, and I'll spend three or four consecutive weekends in an arena somewhere, watching either hockey or basketball across a number of buildings in New England. It's most difficult on my wife, who usually enjoys the solitude and downtime in October but is ready to be done with my disappearing act by the time February and March roll around.
My schedule parted like the Red Sea a couple of weeks ago, and on literally six days' notice, I told her to book a vacation for us. For four days, I mostly disconnected in Nashville, Tennessee, enjoying live music, lively company and some of the best fried chicken I've ever eaten in my life.Â
The first day in Nashville, I sidled up to a television to watch Boston College-Virginia Tech because, well, of course I did. One of the best live bands I've ever listened to was jamming out with fiddles and old school country music, but I was losing my mind while watching the game at Conte Forum. I almost apologized to my wife, but she was there behind me, doing the same.
Virginia Tech became a recent, rising powerhouse over the past couple of years, and even in the weird, obviously-down year for the ACC, a win over a program like that should be celebrated. It proved how BC is continuing to hold its own punching weight against the rest of the ACC, and holding home court against teams with tournament resumes is crucial to earning spots closer to byes in the conference tournament. That wasn't lost on us, especially in that moment, nor was it lost on the bevy of college basketball fans in the middle of SEC Country.
The point of this wasn't to low-key brag about vacation, though I definitely just did that. Instead, I'm focusing on BC's ability to hold its own in the ACC. Taking a two-game season series, with a road win, against a hungry Virginia Tech team would be a huge accomplishment for the Eagles' attempts to rise and fire within the league. It would solidify BC within the conference this year, codifying the team's ability to remain a pistol-hot ACC club into the latter stages of the schedule.
This is a big game, especially with the emotional high from most of the Duke game. Yes, the Eagles lost that game, but they were very much in it and had the blueprint plan to defeat the Blue Devils. Late-game fatigue just ran BC dry against a team too talented to stay down. But a win this weekend would rock the establishment a little bit more, especially so soon after an initial victory.
BC and Virginia Tech will tip off on Saturday at noon at Cassell Coliseum. The game will be broadcast nationally on regional sports networks and locally on NESN+, with streaming options available via the WatchESPN online app. The game can also be heard locally on radio on WEEI 850 AM.
It buoyed a warning to his team for its trip north this past Tuesday. A midweek game at Boston College wasn't anything to overlook and the Eagles would make the game a slugfest. Three seasons ago, Conte Forum exploded into a court-storming frenzy when BC upset the No. 1-ranked Blue Devils. Coach K knew it wasn't an accident, that a formula existed, that Jim Christian knew exactly how to prepare BC to fight a team vying for a No. 1 seed in the national tournament.
It triggered a combination of emotions, then, when BC opened the game with a 12-2 run.
"BC thoroughly outplayed in the first half," Krzyzewski said. "As much as we told our guys what to expect, we weren't ready for it. It's human nature, and we weren't ready to overcome it. BC was so good. We were lucky to (rally) to be down by three (at halftime)."
Duke eventually outlasted the Eagles late in the second half, but the game revealed a spirit and courage deep inside Conte Forum. In the first meeting of the season on New Year's Eve, the Blue Devils ran BC off of the Cameron Indoor Stadium court in an 88-49 blowout.
On Tuesday, it was BC's turn - with a capacity crowd chanting over the Duke supporters in attendance, and the building shaking from start to finish. The Eagles nearly pulled off a win that would have been anything but an upset. In an ACC defined by parity, it would have been a potential death knell to Duke's No. 1 seed hopes in the NCAA Tournament, a potential defining moment to the post-Jerome Robinson and post-Ky Bowman eras.Â
It is still conceivably all of that, even though it wasn't a win.
"Jim's team was so ready for us," Krzyzewski said. "They had Popovic back, and with all of their guys healthy, they're a really good team. They played great."
Here's the major takeaways from this week, in which BC defeated Duke's Tobacco Road rival, North Carolina:
1) Rock Fight
With just over 11 minutes remaining in the second half, Derryck Thornton penetrated into the teeth of the Duke defense. The Blue Devils aggressively attacked him, forcing a kickout pass to center Nik Popovic. Popovic, left wide open outside the arc, steadied himself and unloaded a shot at the hoop. He swished it, and Conte Forum experienced a euphoric, unconscious celebration as the Eagles retook the lead. Popovic himself felt the celebration, swinging his arm and rebel yelling his way back into defense.
It was a positively charged moment for Conte Forum. It was also the game's first 3-pointer after both teams missed their previous 26 attempts combined. The stat wasn't for a lack of effort or opportunity, but neither team held the combination lock code to crack the rim with those statistics.
"I'm signing up for those shots every time," BC head coach Jim Christian said. "Those were wide-open, three-point shots after penetration. Playing them, you have to attack the paint and make decisions with the basketball. We were finding the open shooters for step-in threes. We beat Duke a couple of years ago with the same kind of plays."
Both teams endured nights like this in the past; Duke shot poorly on threes against Brown, and BC couldn't get its offense going against Syracuse. Both teams rallied from those performances, so on Tuesday, neither team necessarily lost its confidence in taking shots. It was just a case where neither team could knock down shots both absolutely had to take.
"We didn't do anything different than we normally do," Christian said. "We were active, and we did well in transition. We did everything we were supposed to do. We just didn't finish, but effort and execution-wise, we did everything we needed to do to win the game."
"It wasn't a good three-point shooting night," Krzyzewski said. "Joey Baker really helped us. Tre (Jones) was outstanding down the stretch. Vernon (Carey) got that fourth foul early, and a lot went on during the night. We felt lucky to have that win; I don't know if we were completely deserving of winning or not, but we got it."
2) Popovic vs. Carey
Vernon Carey, Jr. is going to make an NBA franchise very happy. He's only 18 years old, but he's bigger and stronger than more physically mature basketball players. Carey's six feet, nine inches, with 270 pounds of pure muscle, and he possesses the rare combination of size, agility, speed and power. He's well on his way to the NBA Lottery and nobody should ever doubt it.
Carey's presence took on new meaning when the outside shooting went stone cold, but Nik Popovic turned it into must-watch theater. The senior went head-to-head with the freshman wunderkind, drawing him into mistakes, foul trouble and a poor night on both the shot chart and the rebounding glass.
"It's a position battle against a guy like Carey," Jim Christian said. "He gets deep and angles, and he's almost impossible to stop. Nik and Steffon Mitchell did a really good job getting him off his spot early, and then we rebounded the ball."
Carey finished with 17 points but finished just 5-of-13 from the floor. He had 10 rebounds, but only five came on the offensive glass against Mitchell, who grabbed nine defensive boards en route to a grand total of 12. A frontrunner for ACC Rookie of the Year and legit candidate for conference and national Player of the Year honors, Carey has been held in check in his two games against the Eagles. He is averaging 13.0 points while shooting 47.4% from the floor in those two games. Against all other opponents in 2019-20, Carey is scoring at an 18.3 points per game clip, connecting on just under 60% of his field goal attempts.
3) A Decade in the Making
The Duke game's intensity completely overshadowed the victory over North Carolina, which is saying something because wins against the Tar Heels are rare. Last week's win ended a 12-game losing streak dating back to 2010 and it was the team's third-ever victory at the Dean Smith Center.Â
The scoreline read a one-point victory, but the game didn't necessarily feel that close. The Tar Heels needed 22 free throws, including a 14-for-14 night from a returning freshman star Cole Anthony, to keep the score close, and their 36 percent shooting line didn't exactly breathe confidence into the game's final stretch.
UNC is experiencing a season unlike anything it has experienced in a long time. That said, the Tar Heels are still clearly a talented team and Anthony's return bolstered a lineup in need of an adrenaline injection. BC also beat a team starting to gather some momentum after consecutive victories over Miami and NC State.
Earning that win had clear downstream impacts. BC is very vividly in the middle of the ACC race, and the Duke loss proved how the Eagles can compete with anybody. The overall record is under .500, but places 5-14 in the ACC are completely up for grabs.Â
BC is 5-7, matching its conference win total from a year ago, and is two games out of a position for a first round bye in the ACC Tournament. Finishing fifth earns a bye to the Second Round with a game against the No. 12 or No. 13 seed.
The ACC is such that overall records really need to be thrown out of the window this year. The Eagles haven't earned a bye through the first round since the ACC expanded to 15 teams, though a number of asterisks exist through the years based on former formats.
Layup Line: Big One in Blacksburg
Wintertime is probably the weirdest time of my yearly schedule. Dates remain incredibly fluid, and I'll spend three or four consecutive weekends in an arena somewhere, watching either hockey or basketball across a number of buildings in New England. It's most difficult on my wife, who usually enjoys the solitude and downtime in October but is ready to be done with my disappearing act by the time February and March roll around.
My schedule parted like the Red Sea a couple of weeks ago, and on literally six days' notice, I told her to book a vacation for us. For four days, I mostly disconnected in Nashville, Tennessee, enjoying live music, lively company and some of the best fried chicken I've ever eaten in my life.Â
The first day in Nashville, I sidled up to a television to watch Boston College-Virginia Tech because, well, of course I did. One of the best live bands I've ever listened to was jamming out with fiddles and old school country music, but I was losing my mind while watching the game at Conte Forum. I almost apologized to my wife, but she was there behind me, doing the same.
Virginia Tech became a recent, rising powerhouse over the past couple of years, and even in the weird, obviously-down year for the ACC, a win over a program like that should be celebrated. It proved how BC is continuing to hold its own punching weight against the rest of the ACC, and holding home court against teams with tournament resumes is crucial to earning spots closer to byes in the conference tournament. That wasn't lost on us, especially in that moment, nor was it lost on the bevy of college basketball fans in the middle of SEC Country.
The point of this wasn't to low-key brag about vacation, though I definitely just did that. Instead, I'm focusing on BC's ability to hold its own in the ACC. Taking a two-game season series, with a road win, against a hungry Virginia Tech team would be a huge accomplishment for the Eagles' attempts to rise and fire within the league. It would solidify BC within the conference this year, codifying the team's ability to remain a pistol-hot ACC club into the latter stages of the schedule.
This is a big game, especially with the emotional high from most of the Duke game. Yes, the Eagles lost that game, but they were very much in it and had the blueprint plan to defeat the Blue Devils. Late-game fatigue just ran BC dry against a team too talented to stay down. But a win this weekend would rock the establishment a little bit more, especially so soon after an initial victory.
BC and Virginia Tech will tip off on Saturday at noon at Cassell Coliseum. The game will be broadcast nationally on regional sports networks and locally on NESN+, with streaming options available via the WatchESPN online app. The game can also be heard locally on radio on WEEI 850 AM.
Players Mentioned
Forward
/ Men's Basketball
Forward
/ Men's Basketball
Guard
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's Basketball#23 Baseball Defeats Darmouth (April 8, 2026)
Thursday, April 09
Football: Bill O'Brien Media Availability (April 8, 2026)
Wednesday, April 08
Football: Johnathan Montague Jr. Media Availability (April 8, 2026)
Wednesday, April 08
Football: Israel Oladipupo Media Availability (April 8, 2026)
Wednesday, April 08
