Boston College Athletics
Photo by: Eddie Shabomardenly
Thursday Three-Pointer: Jan. 11, 2024
January 11, 2024 | Men's Basketball, #ForBoston Files
Losing to Syracuse boiled down to maintaining BC's trademark ball control.
CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. -- Basketball at Syracuse's JMA Wireless Dome is one of college sports' most recognizable oddities. The court is boxed against the end zone of a stadium initially built to house the Orange's football team, and the installation of temporary bleachers resembles the way the Detroit Pistons played at the Pontiac Silverdome before their eventual move to the Palace at Auburn Hills. This cut of the football seating bowl still allows for a capacity crowd to reach well north of 30,000, but the humongous, concrete walls and high ceiling lighting operates at the extremes in a way that didn't exist in the smaller, more compact gymnasiums of a past era.
It's a difficult place for even the most seasoned basketball team, but entering a new era under Adrian Autry made Wednesday night's game against Boston College more unique than the standard northeast basketball game between ancient rivals. Not having Jim Boeheim on the sidelines for the first time in nearly 50 years was surreal, but the uniqueness was reinforced as soon as the Orange broke into their new standard as a man-to-man defense.
For decades, Syracuse had used a 2-3 zone that was effective in its simplicity, but Autry, a long-time assistant to Boeheim, abandoned it for a more traditional defense built around the team's physical stature. Zone elements existed, but the Orange packed the interior against BC by instead using their physicality. The expected size and strength slowed down the Eagles defense, and after a rock fight of a start, Syracuse overcame a BC rally to score a 69-59 Wednesday night victory at the Dome.
"We needed to be tougher with the ball," said BC head coach Earl Grant. "They had 32 points in the first half, but 17 came off of our mistakes. We are one of the top teams in the country in ball care, so that was very characteristic, and if we took care of the ball, they'd have had about 18 points in the first half. But give them credit, they were active and they forced us into mistakes."
BC committed 22 turnovers, and the possessions that cracked through the front line of Syracuse's defensive front didn't get very far beyond the outline of the key. Both Jaeden Zackery and Quinten Post were held without a point with a combined 0-for-11 effort from the floor, and the Eagles only totaled nine field goals on 31 attempts in the first half as everyone struggled to gain traction against the paint.
The Eagles failed to crack 10 points until the last four minutes of the half, but a late run flashed a 19-point lead down towards single digits after an 8-0 run over the last two minutes. Having gone bombs away without success that drew Syracuse away from the basket, Claudell Harris Jr. finally sank a three with 3:15 remaining before he splashed another with 1:52 on the clock. His success sandwiched around a layup opened an opportunity for Mason Madsen, and the normally stout Syracuse team found itself pushed aside by a smaller lineup once Post was forced to the bench with foul trouble.  It was enough to buoy BC in the second half, but grabbing the lead ultimately fizzled once Post fouled out of the game.Â
"We were really good defensively with the exception of a couple of things," Grant said, "and before this game we were one of the best in the country at the taking care of the ball. But that wasn't our defense, that was our offense [lacking] ball care and ball toughness. That was a big deal. If you take some of that out, it would've been about a 60-point game for them, so it wasn't all negative. There were a lot of positives, and we have plenty of time to watch the film and figure out how to get better from the mistakes we made."
Here's more from BC's trip to the Central New York region:
1) The secret is to have eight great players and four who will cheer like crazy. -Jerry Tarkanian
Syracuse's old zone defense was built in a way that required a monster center in the middle spot, but switching to a man-to-man defense made the Orange more malleable to different opponents and situations. On Wednesday night, the rebounding core built by Brown's overall emergence compensated for the loss of seven-foot, four-inch center Naheem McLeod, who was ruled out with an injury, just as it overcame how Judah Mintz didn't appear in the game until the 10-minute mark after being removed from the starting lineup.
"It's a different scheme but the same athletes," Grant said. "They have the same speed, same length and same athleticism as what I've experienced over the last 15 years of playing against them."
It wasn't a hybrid defense, but the Orange's new scheme allowed them to switch and communicate against BC's dribble-drive effect. Jaeden Zackery and Quinten Post were largely prevented from moving into the paint over the course of the night, and while their shooting didn't produce any points, their passing issues became apparent when the players closest to the paint converged on Post whenever he caught the ball in the high post.Â
He was essentially triple-covered whenever the ball landed in his hands, but the further clogging prevented anyone from maneuvering closer to the basket or in a way that would allow him to operate with an off-ball screen. He was instead forced into bad passes, and BC later found itself stuck in the mud until hitting shots from outside cleared the Syracuse defense away from the basket.
"We started keeping them out of transition and boxing them out," Grant said. "We made them take tough shots and we shrunk the floor, but when you turn the ball over, they're so fast and athletic that they can go convert. Our second unit executed a little bit better and was tougher with the ball, and that's when we kept Syracuse out of transition. That was the only difference between what we looked like early in the game to where we were in the middle of the game."
2) When you come to a fork in the road, take it. -Yogi Berra
BC's offense is built around options created by off-ball screens and the ability to utilize vision for open shots on those drives through the lane, but not having those open looks forced the Eagles into an iso-based game that highlighted a shift towards Harris and Madsen on the outside. Their combined 27 points didn't seem like much until they scored in combined bunches, but their ability to knock down shots opened second chance opportunities on the rare misses that they took from outside.
Harris, for example, missed a three-pointer in the second half but had a rebound kicked right back to him for another open look that he knocked down. Devin McGlockton, meanwhile, grabbed 14 rebounds by holding six offensive boards, and Prince Aligbe found more space to operate on the wing because Syracuse was finally pushed outside of its defensive comfort zone when Armani Mighty substituted into the game.
"Quinten Post was in foul trouble a lot," Grant conceded, "and I shifted and went to the bench. I went to the bench with those guys when things weren't doing well for us. There are going to be one or two games per year where things just aren't working and you're searching for combinations. We found combinations in our complete second unit, and they took the lead after being down 17 or 18 points. Those guys deserve credit for going out and taking the game from 19 points down to one as opposed to letting the game get out of hand."
3) He's on life support. Doctor's say he's got a 50-50 chance of living, though there's only a ten percent chance of that. -The Naked Gun
Wednesday's loss felt like a disastrous end to the three-game road trip's second leg, but the greater truth is that BC didn't lose as much ground as people might have thought. The Eagles dropped eight spots in the NCAA NET Rankings but remained as high as No. 76 in the Torvik rankings. KenPom's slotting was remarkably similar to the NET, and Syracuse didn't even gain much ground in either poll after beating BC and improving to 8-0 on the home court.
The ACC itself still hasn't spread out after the first four or five games, and even teams considered better than BC find themselves looking up at teams that started the year with modest expectations. Louisville's win over Miami on Wednesday preceded BC's tip-off in a way that gave the Cardinals their first road win of the season, and Clemson, a team ranked well within the at-large field for everyone's overall rankings, is tied with BC, Louisville and Georgia Tech for the spot sitting one-half game ahead of Pittsburgh. Notre Dame, a sub-.500 team, is 2-3 in league play, and Florida State is 3-1 in the ACC despite being winless on the road with less than 10 wins overall.
Granted, the majority of teams are all on the outside of Joe Lunardi's early bracketology, but this weekend's game at Clemson represents a golden opportunity for the Eagles to score a road win over a team that's struggling through its early ACC schedule despite holding a No. 4 seed in the postseason prediction.
Post-Game Huddle: Daddy Daycare Goes To The Octagon
Getting nights alone with my kids is normally a great excuse to gain some alone time after they go to sleep. Both are usually in their respective cribs within that half hour window after 7 p.m., and given my wife's ability to stay out past 8 or 9 usually gives me a window to catch up on the Internet, the news, a show or two, or, in my case, several as-yet-unidentified basketball games. Even with our younger child's newfound love of toddler runs, I seldom found myself in a tough spot before Wednesday night's UFC-style showdown between our 15-month old and her bigger, two-year old sister.
It started innocently with the usual games that we play when I'm in charge. I'm a huge soccer fan, so we'll ordinarily spend some of the night kicking around an inflated yellow smiley ball while yelling goal celebrations. We'll then transition to the floor for some blocks and more low-key games while a show or movie plays out in the background, so I was already thrown off when my older daughter decided to reach for the little kid basketball hoop that we keep in the living room.
Not being in the playpen caused me to raise an eyebrow, but I turned to full-blown panic when they started rifling the squishy mini-basketball off the rim and backboard. Both kids fought over the ball, and the loose balls turned my living room rough into the Boston Garden parquet during the NBA Finals while balls in the air became under-the-basket fights that earned them nicknames like McFilthy and McNasty.
Neither of them actually tried to shoot the basketball, and I became the casualty when my younger daughter splashed onto my chest before shoving her fingers directly into my eyeballs. At that exact moment, right as I wondered why my wife and I hadn't cut her fingernails in whatever time frame was far too long, my bigger one threw the ball at the hoop from across the room. It was, in a phrase, from deep downtown, and I lifted my head to witness the most perfect little kid shot I've ever seen in my life.
She splashed it. She giggled. Then she jumped on my stomach, yelled something about squishing me, and stuck her finger in my other eye. I somehow sustained a scratch on my arm through all of this, and my head nailed the floor. A couple of hours later, my aching, sore body plopped on the couch for BC-Syracuse, to which the first three-pointer reminded me of my two-year old sinking one from Steph Curry territory.
The fact that I walked like the tin man didn't matter. I was a happy, happy camper.
It's a difficult place for even the most seasoned basketball team, but entering a new era under Adrian Autry made Wednesday night's game against Boston College more unique than the standard northeast basketball game between ancient rivals. Not having Jim Boeheim on the sidelines for the first time in nearly 50 years was surreal, but the uniqueness was reinforced as soon as the Orange broke into their new standard as a man-to-man defense.
For decades, Syracuse had used a 2-3 zone that was effective in its simplicity, but Autry, a long-time assistant to Boeheim, abandoned it for a more traditional defense built around the team's physical stature. Zone elements existed, but the Orange packed the interior against BC by instead using their physicality. The expected size and strength slowed down the Eagles defense, and after a rock fight of a start, Syracuse overcame a BC rally to score a 69-59 Wednesday night victory at the Dome.
"We needed to be tougher with the ball," said BC head coach Earl Grant. "They had 32 points in the first half, but 17 came off of our mistakes. We are one of the top teams in the country in ball care, so that was very characteristic, and if we took care of the ball, they'd have had about 18 points in the first half. But give them credit, they were active and they forced us into mistakes."
BC committed 22 turnovers, and the possessions that cracked through the front line of Syracuse's defensive front didn't get very far beyond the outline of the key. Both Jaeden Zackery and Quinten Post were held without a point with a combined 0-for-11 effort from the floor, and the Eagles only totaled nine field goals on 31 attempts in the first half as everyone struggled to gain traction against the paint.
The Eagles failed to crack 10 points until the last four minutes of the half, but a late run flashed a 19-point lead down towards single digits after an 8-0 run over the last two minutes. Having gone bombs away without success that drew Syracuse away from the basket, Claudell Harris Jr. finally sank a three with 3:15 remaining before he splashed another with 1:52 on the clock. His success sandwiched around a layup opened an opportunity for Mason Madsen, and the normally stout Syracuse team found itself pushed aside by a smaller lineup once Post was forced to the bench with foul trouble.  It was enough to buoy BC in the second half, but grabbing the lead ultimately fizzled once Post fouled out of the game.Â
"We were really good defensively with the exception of a couple of things," Grant said, "and before this game we were one of the best in the country at the taking care of the ball. But that wasn't our defense, that was our offense [lacking] ball care and ball toughness. That was a big deal. If you take some of that out, it would've been about a 60-point game for them, so it wasn't all negative. There were a lot of positives, and we have plenty of time to watch the film and figure out how to get better from the mistakes we made."
Here's more from BC's trip to the Central New York region:
1) The secret is to have eight great players and four who will cheer like crazy. -Jerry Tarkanian
Syracuse's old zone defense was built in a way that required a monster center in the middle spot, but switching to a man-to-man defense made the Orange more malleable to different opponents and situations. On Wednesday night, the rebounding core built by Brown's overall emergence compensated for the loss of seven-foot, four-inch center Naheem McLeod, who was ruled out with an injury, just as it overcame how Judah Mintz didn't appear in the game until the 10-minute mark after being removed from the starting lineup.
"It's a different scheme but the same athletes," Grant said. "They have the same speed, same length and same athleticism as what I've experienced over the last 15 years of playing against them."
It wasn't a hybrid defense, but the Orange's new scheme allowed them to switch and communicate against BC's dribble-drive effect. Jaeden Zackery and Quinten Post were largely prevented from moving into the paint over the course of the night, and while their shooting didn't produce any points, their passing issues became apparent when the players closest to the paint converged on Post whenever he caught the ball in the high post.Â
He was essentially triple-covered whenever the ball landed in his hands, but the further clogging prevented anyone from maneuvering closer to the basket or in a way that would allow him to operate with an off-ball screen. He was instead forced into bad passes, and BC later found itself stuck in the mud until hitting shots from outside cleared the Syracuse defense away from the basket.
"We started keeping them out of transition and boxing them out," Grant said. "We made them take tough shots and we shrunk the floor, but when you turn the ball over, they're so fast and athletic that they can go convert. Our second unit executed a little bit better and was tougher with the ball, and that's when we kept Syracuse out of transition. That was the only difference between what we looked like early in the game to where we were in the middle of the game."
2) When you come to a fork in the road, take it. -Yogi Berra
BC's offense is built around options created by off-ball screens and the ability to utilize vision for open shots on those drives through the lane, but not having those open looks forced the Eagles into an iso-based game that highlighted a shift towards Harris and Madsen on the outside. Their combined 27 points didn't seem like much until they scored in combined bunches, but their ability to knock down shots opened second chance opportunities on the rare misses that they took from outside.
Harris, for example, missed a three-pointer in the second half but had a rebound kicked right back to him for another open look that he knocked down. Devin McGlockton, meanwhile, grabbed 14 rebounds by holding six offensive boards, and Prince Aligbe found more space to operate on the wing because Syracuse was finally pushed outside of its defensive comfort zone when Armani Mighty substituted into the game.
"Quinten Post was in foul trouble a lot," Grant conceded, "and I shifted and went to the bench. I went to the bench with those guys when things weren't doing well for us. There are going to be one or two games per year where things just aren't working and you're searching for combinations. We found combinations in our complete second unit, and they took the lead after being down 17 or 18 points. Those guys deserve credit for going out and taking the game from 19 points down to one as opposed to letting the game get out of hand."
3) He's on life support. Doctor's say he's got a 50-50 chance of living, though there's only a ten percent chance of that. -The Naked Gun
Wednesday's loss felt like a disastrous end to the three-game road trip's second leg, but the greater truth is that BC didn't lose as much ground as people might have thought. The Eagles dropped eight spots in the NCAA NET Rankings but remained as high as No. 76 in the Torvik rankings. KenPom's slotting was remarkably similar to the NET, and Syracuse didn't even gain much ground in either poll after beating BC and improving to 8-0 on the home court.
The ACC itself still hasn't spread out after the first four or five games, and even teams considered better than BC find themselves looking up at teams that started the year with modest expectations. Louisville's win over Miami on Wednesday preceded BC's tip-off in a way that gave the Cardinals their first road win of the season, and Clemson, a team ranked well within the at-large field for everyone's overall rankings, is tied with BC, Louisville and Georgia Tech for the spot sitting one-half game ahead of Pittsburgh. Notre Dame, a sub-.500 team, is 2-3 in league play, and Florida State is 3-1 in the ACC despite being winless on the road with less than 10 wins overall.
Granted, the majority of teams are all on the outside of Joe Lunardi's early bracketology, but this weekend's game at Clemson represents a golden opportunity for the Eagles to score a road win over a team that's struggling through its early ACC schedule despite holding a No. 4 seed in the postseason prediction.
Post-Game Huddle: Daddy Daycare Goes To The Octagon
Getting nights alone with my kids is normally a great excuse to gain some alone time after they go to sleep. Both are usually in their respective cribs within that half hour window after 7 p.m., and given my wife's ability to stay out past 8 or 9 usually gives me a window to catch up on the Internet, the news, a show or two, or, in my case, several as-yet-unidentified basketball games. Even with our younger child's newfound love of toddler runs, I seldom found myself in a tough spot before Wednesday night's UFC-style showdown between our 15-month old and her bigger, two-year old sister.
It started innocently with the usual games that we play when I'm in charge. I'm a huge soccer fan, so we'll ordinarily spend some of the night kicking around an inflated yellow smiley ball while yelling goal celebrations. We'll then transition to the floor for some blocks and more low-key games while a show or movie plays out in the background, so I was already thrown off when my older daughter decided to reach for the little kid basketball hoop that we keep in the living room.
Not being in the playpen caused me to raise an eyebrow, but I turned to full-blown panic when they started rifling the squishy mini-basketball off the rim and backboard. Both kids fought over the ball, and the loose balls turned my living room rough into the Boston Garden parquet during the NBA Finals while balls in the air became under-the-basket fights that earned them nicknames like McFilthy and McNasty.
Neither of them actually tried to shoot the basketball, and I became the casualty when my younger daughter splashed onto my chest before shoving her fingers directly into my eyeballs. At that exact moment, right as I wondered why my wife and I hadn't cut her fingernails in whatever time frame was far too long, my bigger one threw the ball at the hoop from across the room. It was, in a phrase, from deep downtown, and I lifted my head to witness the most perfect little kid shot I've ever seen in my life.
She splashed it. She giggled. Then she jumped on my stomach, yelled something about squishing me, and stuck her finger in my other eye. I somehow sustained a scratch on my arm through all of this, and my head nailed the floor. A couple of hours later, my aching, sore body plopped on the couch for BC-Syracuse, to which the first three-pointer reminded me of my two-year old sinking one from Steph Curry territory.
The fact that I walked like the tin man didn't matter. I was a happy, happy camper.
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