Boston College Athletics
Photo by: Eddie Shabomardenly
Eagles Shootaround: Weeks II-III
December 02, 2022 | Men's Basketball, #ForBoston Files
Cleaning out the closet for some tidbits from the start of this season and the ACC-Big Ten Challenge
CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. -- In 1999, the ACC and Big Ten worked with their media partners at ESPN to create a non-conference basketball matchup between the two basketball conferences. It was dubbed the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, and over the next 23 years, the ongoing hype and growth surrounding the event spurred a number of copycats throughout the country. Its ability to pit like-minded, similar programs against one another offered litmus tests for teams seeking to build and challenge teams in similar situations from another conference, and the annual timing centered around the first week in December felt perfect for the aftermath of the multi-team events and tournaments scattered around Thanksgiving.
Nothing ever really matched the ongoing collaboration, but college sports aren't designed to maintain the status quo. The shifting and grinding along its tectonic plates is loaded with volatility, and reality bears witness to the constant changes of membership and coverage associated with the national growth and expansion baked into every conference and league.
The ACC-Big Ten Challenge bucked that trend, but it, too, was lost after the Big Ten's new media rights contract moved into a different era. This year became the last iteration of the scheduling arrangement, and the event drew to a close with the ACC winning, 8-6, over three days at the start of this week, though Boston College dropped one of the final three matchups by losing, 88-67, to Nebraska on Wednesday night.
The 21-point loss represented the second-worst loss of Earl Grant's tenure in Chestnut Hill, and it drew a stark contrast to how the game started after the Eagles shot 48 percent in the first half. They were 5-for-10 from outside, and CJ Penha, the team's double-digit scorer from the Paradise jam holiday tournament, rang up nine points by shooting 3-for-4 from the floor. Nobody was truly in foul trouble, and the team's five turnovers and 12 overall rebounds contrasted with the Huskers' ability to crash the paint for 20 of their 37 points.
"The biggest thing is to learn what we did here," said Grant. "We'll watch the film and learn from what we did. A lot of that stuff was self-inflicted, so we could do a lot better job of staying poised and taking the right shots to continue to try to execute."
BC was very clearly playing an equal game on the road, but it unraveled in the second half when the team didn't hit its first field goal for the first eight-plus minutes of the period. Nebraska had gone on a 14-2 run by then, and the three-point deficit at the half subsequently morphed into a 17-point Huskers lead. Two other runs throughout the half pushed the lead up towards 28 points, rendering a late-game, 6-0 run irrelevant in the lopsided loss.
"I felt really good about the first half," said Grant. "I thought we controlled it and did a really good job of defending them. We broke down a few times on the shooter, but it was a three-point game at the half. They really hurt us in the last two minutes of the first half with a 9-1 run, and then in the second half, we just lost our poise. We went from 12 to 15 and then from 15 to 18, and they shot the ball really well to get some rhythm. The crowd got behind them, and we never could really stop the bleeding."
Here are some more observations from a busy couple of weeks in college basketball:
The loss brought the curtain down on the ACC-Big Ten Challenge after the Eagles returned to the conference lineup this year and ended BC's tenure in the program with a 7-7 record. The team split a four-game span before being left out of last year's event, and though the Eagles played Maryland and Rutgers as conference opponents in the ACC and Big East, they exit the event with games played against it exits by having now played every Big Ten opponent except for Illinois,Â
Wednesday marked BC's return to the ACC-Big Ten Challenge after last year omitted the Eagles due to the ACC having 15 teams to the Big Ten's 14. There was no correlation to BC's finish or final record, and the program entered this year one game over .500 after splitting the previous four years in the tournament, a run that included a win over Nebraska in 2017.Â
It was actually the Eagles' return to the event after the ACC omitted BC as its extra team last season. They had historically been pretty good to the conference's record and were 2-2 over their last four returns with a win over the Huskers in 2017.
Other observations from a busy couple of weeks in college basketball:
1) Leftover B1G Notes
Wednesday marked BC's return to the ACC-Big Ten Challenge after missing the event last year due to the ACC having one more team than the Big Ten, and the loss meant the Eagles finished their tenure in the competition with a 7-7 record. They last missed the event in 2016 but returned to split the next four years by beating Nebraska and losing to Northwestern while splitting with Minnesota. BC also missed the event in 2014 but annually appeared in the Challenge after making its debut in 2005, one year after joining the ACC.
Nebraska became the fourth Big Ten team with multiple games against the Eagles and the first realignment or expansion team to play BC more than once. The Huskers remain the only team from the most recent line of realignments to play BC, though the other two Big Ten members impacted were Maryland and Rutgers, both of which were former conference opponents of the Eagles as members of the ACC and Big East. Having now played the Huskers twice, the home side has now played every Big Ten team except for Illinois, though it has never played Maryland or Rutgers as a Big Ten team, even in a standard non-conference game.
BC fell to 20-23 lifetime against the Big Ten, which currently does not have a cross-conference challenge for next season. The ACC will replace the Big Ten with the SEC next season, though the ACC will still need to exclude one team from its lineup due to having an extra team. That is scheduled to change in 2025 when the 14-team SEC expands with the additions of Oklahoma and Texas.
2) Some more granola for your cereal.
An ACC opener at Duke looms on Saturday afternoon, but the Nebraska loss still left a bitter taste for one of the last non-conference games available for the 2022-2023 season. It was their first true road game, and though three non-league games remain, it was the final tuneup after the team won three of its previous four games by holding opponents under 55 points. The previous two games against Wyoming and Rhode Island were the first time in 18 years that BC held consecutive opponents under 50 points during the shot clock era and improved the Eagles to 4-2 when holding opponents to under 70 points. Nebraska was the first team this year to score more than 80 points, though the Eagles' win over Cornell was the only time another team with 70 or more points against BC prior to Wednesday.
Somewhat ironically, BC kept an undefeated record under its hat when Devin McGlockton registered at least one block. He scored 20 points on Wednesday to become the first BC player with 20 points in a game this year after both Makai Ashton-Langford and Mason Madsen scored 18 points earlier this season, which was also McGlockton's third consecutive game with double-digit scoring. It made him the fifth active Eagle with a 20-plus point game.
3) Wild and crazy guys
Three non-conference games remain on the BC schedule, but the Eagles head into conference play this weekend with some insane parity forming in the meat of the Atlantic Coast Conference. The Eagles' 5-3 record is equal to 18th-ranked North Carolina and Pittsburgh, and 12 teams enter conference play with three or less overall losses in the season's early weeks. No. 3 Virginia is the league's lone undefeated team, while Duke and North Carolina remain the only other ranked teams in the middle of the top-25. None of the one-loss teams are ranked, and Florida State and Louisvillle are a combined 1-15 with their lone win coming when the Seminoles defeated Mercer by nine points.
Despite those numbers, the league still won the ACC-Big Ten Challenge for the first time since 2017 with an 8-6 record that was clinched when Notre Dame defeated No. 20 Mihcigan State, 70-52, at home on Wednesday night. Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh each won their opening night games over Minnesota and Northwestern, before the Big Ten rallied behind wins by Maryland, Illinois and Iowa. Virginia's two-point win at MIchigan really stamped home the series for the ACC, and Duke's win over Ohio State provided some added flair before Miami beat Rutgers in the early slate of Wednesday night's games.Â
The most lopsided loss of the tournament came when No. 16 Illinois trounced Syracuse, 73-44, while Virginia and Wake Forest won the only one-possession games.
Layup Line: Onto Cameron
Playing at Duke has always had a mystique, but a big piece of the Blue Devils' aura left after last season when Mike Krzyzewski retired after 42 years as head coach. His replacement, Jon Scheyer, has been an incredibly patient presence with a team in transition after last year's run to the Final Four, and this week's win over Ohio State stamped the team's staying power after a loss to Purdue sent it tumbling out of the top-10.
It stamped the volatility and overall strength of teams currently sitting atop the national polls. Just two conferences have multiple teams in the top-10, and one, the Big East, has an undefeated, 8-0 Connecticut team with more wins than any other team currently ranked. Houston took home top honors this week for the first time since Clyde Drexler led Phi Slama Jama into the national championship game against Jim Valvano's NC State Wolfpack, and four teams had at least one first place vote - though every team involved had multiple selections to top the poll.
Since we've been cleaning out the closet of some overall notables, it's also worth noting one other thing with the mention of Jim Valvano's Wolfpack since this week kicked off V Week in college basketball. The week-long celebration of Jim Valvano's life and battle against cancer is one part remembrance, one part basketball and ends with the Jimmy V Classic at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night, where Duke will play Iowa as part of a two-game night featuring Illinois-Texas.
The event itself is televised on ESPN three days after the Blue Devils play BC at Cameron Indoor Stadium. That game with the Eagles is set for 4 p.m. with television coverage on the ACC Network, and online streaming is available through the ESPN platform of Internet and mobile apps for subscribers with access to the channel.
Nothing ever really matched the ongoing collaboration, but college sports aren't designed to maintain the status quo. The shifting and grinding along its tectonic plates is loaded with volatility, and reality bears witness to the constant changes of membership and coverage associated with the national growth and expansion baked into every conference and league.
The ACC-Big Ten Challenge bucked that trend, but it, too, was lost after the Big Ten's new media rights contract moved into a different era. This year became the last iteration of the scheduling arrangement, and the event drew to a close with the ACC winning, 8-6, over three days at the start of this week, though Boston College dropped one of the final three matchups by losing, 88-67, to Nebraska on Wednesday night.
The 21-point loss represented the second-worst loss of Earl Grant's tenure in Chestnut Hill, and it drew a stark contrast to how the game started after the Eagles shot 48 percent in the first half. They were 5-for-10 from outside, and CJ Penha, the team's double-digit scorer from the Paradise jam holiday tournament, rang up nine points by shooting 3-for-4 from the floor. Nobody was truly in foul trouble, and the team's five turnovers and 12 overall rebounds contrasted with the Huskers' ability to crash the paint for 20 of their 37 points.
"The biggest thing is to learn what we did here," said Grant. "We'll watch the film and learn from what we did. A lot of that stuff was self-inflicted, so we could do a lot better job of staying poised and taking the right shots to continue to try to execute."
BC was very clearly playing an equal game on the road, but it unraveled in the second half when the team didn't hit its first field goal for the first eight-plus minutes of the period. Nebraska had gone on a 14-2 run by then, and the three-point deficit at the half subsequently morphed into a 17-point Huskers lead. Two other runs throughout the half pushed the lead up towards 28 points, rendering a late-game, 6-0 run irrelevant in the lopsided loss.
"I felt really good about the first half," said Grant. "I thought we controlled it and did a really good job of defending them. We broke down a few times on the shooter, but it was a three-point game at the half. They really hurt us in the last two minutes of the first half with a 9-1 run, and then in the second half, we just lost our poise. We went from 12 to 15 and then from 15 to 18, and they shot the ball really well to get some rhythm. The crowd got behind them, and we never could really stop the bleeding."
Here are some more observations from a busy couple of weeks in college basketball:
The loss brought the curtain down on the ACC-Big Ten Challenge after the Eagles returned to the conference lineup this year and ended BC's tenure in the program with a 7-7 record. The team split a four-game span before being left out of last year's event, and though the Eagles played Maryland and Rutgers as conference opponents in the ACC and Big East, they exit the event with games played against it exits by having now played every Big Ten opponent except for Illinois,Â
Wednesday marked BC's return to the ACC-Big Ten Challenge after last year omitted the Eagles due to the ACC having 15 teams to the Big Ten's 14. There was no correlation to BC's finish or final record, and the program entered this year one game over .500 after splitting the previous four years in the tournament, a run that included a win over Nebraska in 2017.Â
It was actually the Eagles' return to the event after the ACC omitted BC as its extra team last season. They had historically been pretty good to the conference's record and were 2-2 over their last four returns with a win over the Huskers in 2017.
Other observations from a busy couple of weeks in college basketball:
1) Leftover B1G Notes
Wednesday marked BC's return to the ACC-Big Ten Challenge after missing the event last year due to the ACC having one more team than the Big Ten, and the loss meant the Eagles finished their tenure in the competition with a 7-7 record. They last missed the event in 2016 but returned to split the next four years by beating Nebraska and losing to Northwestern while splitting with Minnesota. BC also missed the event in 2014 but annually appeared in the Challenge after making its debut in 2005, one year after joining the ACC.
Nebraska became the fourth Big Ten team with multiple games against the Eagles and the first realignment or expansion team to play BC more than once. The Huskers remain the only team from the most recent line of realignments to play BC, though the other two Big Ten members impacted were Maryland and Rutgers, both of which were former conference opponents of the Eagles as members of the ACC and Big East. Having now played the Huskers twice, the home side has now played every Big Ten team except for Illinois, though it has never played Maryland or Rutgers as a Big Ten team, even in a standard non-conference game.
BC fell to 20-23 lifetime against the Big Ten, which currently does not have a cross-conference challenge for next season. The ACC will replace the Big Ten with the SEC next season, though the ACC will still need to exclude one team from its lineup due to having an extra team. That is scheduled to change in 2025 when the 14-team SEC expands with the additions of Oklahoma and Texas.
2) Some more granola for your cereal.
An ACC opener at Duke looms on Saturday afternoon, but the Nebraska loss still left a bitter taste for one of the last non-conference games available for the 2022-2023 season. It was their first true road game, and though three non-league games remain, it was the final tuneup after the team won three of its previous four games by holding opponents under 55 points. The previous two games against Wyoming and Rhode Island were the first time in 18 years that BC held consecutive opponents under 50 points during the shot clock era and improved the Eagles to 4-2 when holding opponents to under 70 points. Nebraska was the first team this year to score more than 80 points, though the Eagles' win over Cornell was the only time another team with 70 or more points against BC prior to Wednesday.
Somewhat ironically, BC kept an undefeated record under its hat when Devin McGlockton registered at least one block. He scored 20 points on Wednesday to become the first BC player with 20 points in a game this year after both Makai Ashton-Langford and Mason Madsen scored 18 points earlier this season, which was also McGlockton's third consecutive game with double-digit scoring. It made him the fifth active Eagle with a 20-plus point game.
3) Wild and crazy guys
Three non-conference games remain on the BC schedule, but the Eagles head into conference play this weekend with some insane parity forming in the meat of the Atlantic Coast Conference. The Eagles' 5-3 record is equal to 18th-ranked North Carolina and Pittsburgh, and 12 teams enter conference play with three or less overall losses in the season's early weeks. No. 3 Virginia is the league's lone undefeated team, while Duke and North Carolina remain the only other ranked teams in the middle of the top-25. None of the one-loss teams are ranked, and Florida State and Louisvillle are a combined 1-15 with their lone win coming when the Seminoles defeated Mercer by nine points.
Despite those numbers, the league still won the ACC-Big Ten Challenge for the first time since 2017 with an 8-6 record that was clinched when Notre Dame defeated No. 20 Mihcigan State, 70-52, at home on Wednesday night. Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh each won their opening night games over Minnesota and Northwestern, before the Big Ten rallied behind wins by Maryland, Illinois and Iowa. Virginia's two-point win at MIchigan really stamped home the series for the ACC, and Duke's win over Ohio State provided some added flair before Miami beat Rutgers in the early slate of Wednesday night's games.Â
The most lopsided loss of the tournament came when No. 16 Illinois trounced Syracuse, 73-44, while Virginia and Wake Forest won the only one-possession games.
Layup Line: Onto Cameron
Playing at Duke has always had a mystique, but a big piece of the Blue Devils' aura left after last season when Mike Krzyzewski retired after 42 years as head coach. His replacement, Jon Scheyer, has been an incredibly patient presence with a team in transition after last year's run to the Final Four, and this week's win over Ohio State stamped the team's staying power after a loss to Purdue sent it tumbling out of the top-10.
It stamped the volatility and overall strength of teams currently sitting atop the national polls. Just two conferences have multiple teams in the top-10, and one, the Big East, has an undefeated, 8-0 Connecticut team with more wins than any other team currently ranked. Houston took home top honors this week for the first time since Clyde Drexler led Phi Slama Jama into the national championship game against Jim Valvano's NC State Wolfpack, and four teams had at least one first place vote - though every team involved had multiple selections to top the poll.
Since we've been cleaning out the closet of some overall notables, it's also worth noting one other thing with the mention of Jim Valvano's Wolfpack since this week kicked off V Week in college basketball. The week-long celebration of Jim Valvano's life and battle against cancer is one part remembrance, one part basketball and ends with the Jimmy V Classic at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night, where Duke will play Iowa as part of a two-game night featuring Illinois-Texas.
The event itself is televised on ESPN three days after the Blue Devils play BC at Cameron Indoor Stadium. That game with the Eagles is set for 4 p.m. with television coverage on the ACC Network, and online streaming is available through the ESPN platform of Internet and mobile apps for subscribers with access to the channel.
Players Mentioned
G
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's Basketball
F
/ Men's BasketballNo. 20 Baseball defeats UMass Lowell (April 28, 2026)
Wednesday, April 29
From the Desk of Blake James | Episode 8
Friday, April 24
Baseball: 2026 ALS Game vs Virginia Tech Recap
Tuesday, April 21
No. 24 Baseball Defeats Duke (April 18, 2026) - Game 2
Sunday, April 19
