Greensboro Awaits Arrival Of Madness

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. -- Predicting college basketball sleeper teams almost required oxymoronic reasoning. A Cinderella needs to come out of nowhere, so figuring out which program is capable of making that run almost diminishes certain teams from the status. It's part of the fun of March Madness, the most dangerous and unpredictable month of any sport in the American athletics landscape.

Winning almost can't become surprising if a team is expected to make a run. So if someone wants a prime candidate for a Cinderella team in this week's ACC Tournament in Greensboro, it might be worth looking at Boston College.

Boston College carries the profile of a team fitted for a glass slipper. The Eagles were .500 in league play as recently as mid-February before a rash of injuries wiped out key components from their starting lineup. The inconsistent lineups led to equally-erratic play, and final scores reflected the situation. The team ended the year with five consecutive losses and a 7-13 conference record.

Those reasons added into an equation with a negative result. The losing streak to end the season means nobody expects the Eagles to create something on the Greensboro Coliseum floor. Underneath the non-believers, though, sits reasoning and logic in their back pocket that has them ready to grab a brass ring in a ball gown.

"We have to rest," head coach Jim Christian said after BC's loss to Florida State in the regular season finale. "We played six guys. So we have to rest. There are no bad teams in this league, and (everybody) wants to play hard. That's what makes the ACC Tournament special. We have to get ready for the next game."

For BC, the next game is a reason why there's potential for a surprising run in the ACC Tournament. The Eagles finished in a three-way tie for 11th place, winning the slot based on tiebreakers with Virginia Tech and Miami. That would ordinarily lead to a first round game against the last seed into the tournament with the winner advancing to play the No. 8 seed.

Georgia Tech, though, is ineligible for the postseason after dropping its appeal of an NCAA violation. The Yellow Jackets finished the year in fifth place with an 11-9 record, but their inability to compete this week forced the conference to reconfigure its postseason bracket to 14 teams. Every team bumped up one spot, with the No. 10 seed earning a bye to the Second Round.

Boston College is the clear beneficiary, but the real advantage is in the Eagles' path through the tournament. The No. 7 seed in the tournament is Notre Dame, meaning the Fighting Irish play their Holy War rivals for a third time in the conference tournament. The winner advances to play No. 2 Virginia, which finished tied for its spot with Duke and Louisville.

Virginia finished the regular season winning its last eight games. The Cavaliers, the defending national champions, then won a series of tiebreakers over both the Cardinals and Blue Devils. Duke went 0-2 against both teams, easily eliminating it into fourth place, before Virginia edged Louisville on a secondary head-to-head tiebreaker based on its win over regular season champion Florida State.

That gives BC a clear path to the semifinals if healthier bodies emerge in Greensboro. The Eagles are the No. 10 seed but would have swept Notre Dame if TJ Gibbs didn't hit a desperation shot with 0.1 seconds left on the clock.

BC shot 53 percent in the first half of that game and took a 41-34 lead into halftime. The Eagles had led by as many as 10 at one point, and both Derryck Thornton and Steffon Mitchell pounded the Fighting Irish from outside and inside for a combined 18 points. Mitchell added six rebounds and six assists with a varied role of crashing the boards and distributing the ball back outside.

The Eagles persevered in that game even after Notre Dame took a lead with 3:42 remaining in the game. Thornton hit a jumper to give BC a 59-58 lead, and Jay Heath swished a runner with eight seconds left to give the Eagles a 61-60 lead. Mitchell finished with 12 points, including three three-pointers, and was one assist shy of a triple-double.

Notre Dame struggled to completely contain BC in that game, and the universal consensus agreed the better team didn't walk off the parquet with the win. Almost everyone contributed, and young players like CJ Felder and Julian Rishwain grew up fast in that game. Felder hit all three of his shots in eight minutes' time, and Rishwain splashed three shots from beyond the arc with four rebounds.

That was one of the last games where the Eagles were almost completely healthy. Jairus Hamilton missed the game, robbing BC of a key cog in its frontcourt. As the season wore on, Jared Hamilton joined his brother on the injured list, and both Nik Popovic and Rishwain fought nagging injuries through the closing days of the season.

The battered lineup left Mitchell as the only regular forward, and FSU capitalized by simply feeding its bigs. Dominik Olejniczak and Balsa Koprivica both measured over seven feet tall and combined for 29 points on 13-for-16 shooting, with the former going a perfect 6-for-6 in 11 minutes off the bench. Patrick Williams added 10 points and six rebounds, giving the Seminoles frontline production even as Trent Forrest and Devin Vassell went a combined 4-for-13 from the field.

"Trent Forrest is a good driver to the ball," Christian said. "He can finish in the lane. He can drive, and we knew that. He still finds angles and can hit tough angle shots. Those bigs don't get credit because FSU has drivers. It can become an offensive rebound fest."

FSU's success had a very obvious path because the Eagles lacked size and depth, and it's something rest will help with the bye through the ACC Tournament's first day. The bracket rewards teams finishing atop the standings with double byes, and every team has to win a minimum of three games in three days in order to hoist the league's championship trophy. For BC, that would have originally meant winning five games in five days, but the bye limits that by a factor of one.

It's also an advantageous draw. In 2018, BC finished 12th and drew Georgia Tech in the first round. The Eagles won and advanced to the second round to play NC State, which finished fifth despite falling to the NCAA Tournament's bubble. Finishing one spot up in the standings would have positioned BC for a second round matchup with North Carolina, a team that was ranked No. 10 in the nation but finished sixth.

NC State eventually qualified for the NCAA Tournament, but the Eagles made the Wolfpack sweat it out with a win in Brooklyn. The win earned BC a trip to the NIT as the highest-seeded ACC team not in the Field of 68. This year, BC is paired with Notre Dame before playing Virginia, which lost to the Eagles in Massachusetts before winning by 13 in Charlottesville.

This year's ACC is loaded with unprecedented parity. Three games separated fifth from 12th, and nine teams tied for three different spots. Teams routinely beat other teams without rhyme or reason, with the only exception coming from the four teams with at least 15 wins. Florida State won the regular season championship with a 16-4 record, the most losses since North Carolina's 14-4 record in 2017.

Almost nobody considers Boston College a sleeper team for this year's tournament, but all signs are pointing to chaos. At some point, someone will fit into the slipper and grab Cinderella's crown. How, where, when and why it happens is open to debate, but there's a prime candidate coming to Greensboro from the ACC's most northern outpost.

Boston College and Notre Dame will tip-off on Wednesday at 7 p.m. from the Greensboro Coliseum. The game will be televised on ESPN2 with radio broadcast available on TuneIn and on 93.7 WEEI FM HD2.

Players Mentioned

CJ Felder

Jairus Hamilton

Jared Hamilton

Jay Heath

Steffon Mitchell

Nik Popovic

Julian Rishwain

Derryck Thornton

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