Boston College Athletics
Photo by: Meg Kelly
February 01, 2024 | Men's Basketball, #ForBoston Files
BC pulled itself back into the postseason conversation with its first win over 'Cuse in six years.
CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. - Conte Forum was nowhere near losing its glow in the aftermath of Boston College's five-point win over Syracuse on Tuesday night. The split crowd owed its electric atmosphere to the large Orange fan base situated throughout the Boston area, but the loud, raucous BC fans drowned road chants and support well into the night after the Eagles smoked past one of their oldest rivals after a historic 21-0 run bridged halftime by bringing fans to their feet. Splashed three-pointers and rugged, hard dunks turned a physical game into one of those old Big East fights on the corner that head coach Earl Grant frequently spoke about, though the fondness for trash-talk ratcheted degrees into a heat zone when Syracuse righted its ship in the second half.
Conte felt like a playground, and the two head coaches wore their emotional reactions on their faces in their respective postgame press conferences as a smiling Earl Grant contrasted Adrian Autry's head rubbing frustration. They were microcosms of a night, and Wednesday came and went with the excitement still buzzing throughout the Boston College fan base.
Then came Wednesday night.  I'm sure I will speak to BC's gridiron path forward once details become clearer. In the meantime, the dust will continue to settle, and I'll choose to focus my energy, at least for now, on continuing coverage of the stories that are season-long.
With that in mind, here's a deeper dive into BC's win over the Orange:
1) "I'm gonna bust you up." "Go for it."
Tuesday night featured two teams on equal footing with one another in terms of production at both ends of the floor, but the methodology of both BC and Syracuse offered differing viewpoints into the mentality of how the Eagles attempted to avoid letting the Orange dictate the pace and tempo of their second meeting. The Orange that played a slower, more half-court style in the first game held BC with strong defense. In the second matchup, even as Autry's coaching had them playing more aggressive man-to-man over the traditional and recognizable Syracuse 2-3 zone that Jim Boeheim employed, the Eagles grabbed a bit of momentum in the first half after speeding up a transition game that subsequently prevented the Orange from getting back into their set.
"We played with our pace," Grant said. "We actually tried to make them our pace - because the game at their place, we weren't playing at our pace. Playing at home made us clean it up and that's why we were so excited about this game. More than shots, we were able to play with better pace than when we played on the road. We took the lead in that game in the second half, but we were ready for this game because we wanted to see how we'd improved over the past three weeks. We wanted to ask if we were better than we were three weeks ago because we felt like we were improving."
Playing with a slightly quicker tempo broke Syracuse's offense after the Orange opened the game by dribble-driving through the Eagles' overall defense in the early minutes. Judah Mintz, in particular, found himself deployed more to the outside while Maliq Brown and Chris Bell attempted to move inside, and eight of the first 16 Syracuse came when the team moved itself with efficiency in the paint.Â
"I thought when we stretched the floor, we started really putting pressure on [BC]," Autry said. "I thought we really got going with a couple of nice passes, but we got some twos. We were doing everything that we needed to do to get ourselves back into the game as far as the way we attacked, but it was just a different game."
2) "He's getting killed out there!" "No, no, no. He's getting mad!"
Devin McGlockton's return to the game helped BC stabilize the lower paint against Mintz's dribble-drive, but the modified 2-3 zone expanded easily into different looks that forced outside shooters to take bad looks. Starling scored 11 points in the second half but only went 3-for-8 from the floor with one missed attempt inside the three-point arc, and Mintz's 4-for-7 half spilled over to Quadir Copeland's 3-for-7 shooting off the bench.Â
Nobody aside from Benny Williams successfully grabbed rebounds, and even his five boards and two steals in the second half came with the added cost of four fouls in 15 minutes.
"We played man-to-man for the majority of the game," Grant said, "but we played a little zone, trapped, picked up the full court and tried to keep the ball away from Judah Mintz. We'd move back into a 2-1-2 and switch to a 1-1-3, but it was to keep them off-balance. Our guys all worked together, and we knew what we were trying to do to communicate. We did a good job executing that plan."
Mintz's elimination from the game plan had a spillover effect to the frontcourt because Syracuse was unable to gain space at the rim, and BC's substitution and insertions into the lineup proved Grant prophetic after he talked about the personnel dedicated to playing different styles.
He'd more specifically talked on the ACC weekly call about using different mentalities and systems for speeding a game up versus slowing it down, and he called out Kelley as a faster option compared to Jaeden Zackery's half-court style. Over the course of the second half, Grant deployed Kelley when he wanted to speed Syracuse into transition basketball only after Zackery roughed the Orange with a more methodical, physical style. Kelley's speed simultaneously released Claudell Harris Jr., and Grant eventually brought them both into the game to flip-flop possessions as the point guard within a game theory that threw Autry's man-to-man defense into chaos.
"The main thing was just matching their physicality," Zackery said. "The first time we played them, they were being physical, and we just let them do it. We knew we had to fight back in this game, so I don't think there was any major adjustment other than being more physical and doing the things that we worked on all year."
3) "Now, when you beat me, you beat me by one…ONE…second. Do you know what something like that does to a man of my intelligence?" "I thought you said you got over it." "I lied."
Boston College's last win over Syracuse came four years into my wedded bliss and three years before my oldest daughter was born. A team featuring the sharp-shooting trio of Ky Bowman, Jordan Chatman, and Jerome Robinson won 19 games and ended an eight-year postseason drought with a berth in the NIT.  The win over Syracuse was the penultimate regular season game, but the 15-point victory felt like a statement over a team that won 23 games and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen.Â
This is a very different Boston College program, but Tuesday night legitimately felt like the Eagles transitioned from one stage of their rebuilding effort. It created space between the four-win teams and the bottom two teams even though Georgia Tech's upset win over North Carolina added an unexpected third win to the Yellow Jackets' total. The breakaway pack housing the Orange and Virginia Tech slipped a little further back towards Clemson and Boston College after the Hokies lost to Duke on Monday night, but it brought the Eagles within shouting distance of Wake Forest and NC State with eyeballs on the higher goals protected by Virginia and the league's elite class as the team enters a bye weekend.
"I like to play," Grant laughed. "I like to play every other day or every couple of days, but 10 games into the conference schedule is the right time for a bye. I'm glad it came right in the middle so we can take deep breaths, assess what we're doing and where we need to improve, and let the guys rest a little bit. A bye week gives you the chance to do a lot of things, specifically, to continue to improve and let them be students for a couple of days."
Post-Game Huddle: Postseason Outlook
It's worth noting that a 13-win Boston College team still very much holds a shot at the postseason after beating Syracuse. Ten games remain towards the end of the season, and basing numbers off last season gives the Eagles an open door towards the NIT or the NCAA Tournament if they're able to improve and play their best basketball in February and March.
Next week opens the first of two matchups against Florida State, and a road trip to Cameron Indoor Stadium precedes home games against Louisville and Miami, both of which are on the schedule twice. No road games remain against teams that BC won't first see at home, and even the Virginia game is at home for a 9 p.m. start.
That favorable schedule teeters against an ACC that's underrated on the national scene. In his most recent Bracketology, ESPN's Joe Lunardi has three ACC teams in the tournament with two scheduled for the East Region that ends at Boston's TD Garden. North Carolina remains a No. 1 seed even after losing to Georgia Tech, but a No. 4 seed for Duke and a No. 6 seed for Clemson means there's work left for a conference that is more likely to send the remainder of its top seven teams to the NIT.
The last four teams in the tournament, though, add a bit of flair to BC's schedule because several of the last teams out of the tournament are considered national powerhouses. Down seasons by Villanova, Butler, Oregon, Cincinnati, and Gonzaga are clearly impacting the tournament selection this year, but not being able to go head-to-head means the Eagles need to win to push ahead of the NET rankings and more analytic-based judgments.
Looking solely at the KenPom ratings, the overall strength of the Big East keeps Villanova, Providence and Butler within 10 slots of one another, and both Boise State, Oregon, and Nebraska are in that same range around No. 50 nationally. Virginia Tech and Wake Forest are the lone ACC teams around there, and Gonzaga, a team considered out of Lunardi's bracket, is No. 19 in KenPom.
In contrast, BC sits 86th, but beating Syracuse, which was slightly ahead of the Eagles, pushed the team closer to Florida State at No. 71. Miami is likewise in that same range at No. 67 - as is No. 65 Pittsburgh and No. 58 Virginia. Where Seton Hall is a bubble team, that means the Eagles can make a run by beating the teams remaining on the schedule to move ahead of the analytics. Assuming there's a natural drop, BC then still very much has tournament hopes alive if it can make a run in the last month.
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Conte felt like a playground, and the two head coaches wore their emotional reactions on their faces in their respective postgame press conferences as a smiling Earl Grant contrasted Adrian Autry's head rubbing frustration. They were microcosms of a night, and Wednesday came and went with the excitement still buzzing throughout the Boston College fan base.
Then came Wednesday night.  I'm sure I will speak to BC's gridiron path forward once details become clearer. In the meantime, the dust will continue to settle, and I'll choose to focus my energy, at least for now, on continuing coverage of the stories that are season-long.
With that in mind, here's a deeper dive into BC's win over the Orange:
1) "I'm gonna bust you up." "Go for it."
Tuesday night featured two teams on equal footing with one another in terms of production at both ends of the floor, but the methodology of both BC and Syracuse offered differing viewpoints into the mentality of how the Eagles attempted to avoid letting the Orange dictate the pace and tempo of their second meeting. The Orange that played a slower, more half-court style in the first game held BC with strong defense. In the second matchup, even as Autry's coaching had them playing more aggressive man-to-man over the traditional and recognizable Syracuse 2-3 zone that Jim Boeheim employed, the Eagles grabbed a bit of momentum in the first half after speeding up a transition game that subsequently prevented the Orange from getting back into their set.
"We played with our pace," Grant said. "We actually tried to make them our pace - because the game at their place, we weren't playing at our pace. Playing at home made us clean it up and that's why we were so excited about this game. More than shots, we were able to play with better pace than when we played on the road. We took the lead in that game in the second half, but we were ready for this game because we wanted to see how we'd improved over the past three weeks. We wanted to ask if we were better than we were three weeks ago because we felt like we were improving."
Playing with a slightly quicker tempo broke Syracuse's offense after the Orange opened the game by dribble-driving through the Eagles' overall defense in the early minutes. Judah Mintz, in particular, found himself deployed more to the outside while Maliq Brown and Chris Bell attempted to move inside, and eight of the first 16 Syracuse came when the team moved itself with efficiency in the paint.Â
"I thought when we stretched the floor, we started really putting pressure on [BC]," Autry said. "I thought we really got going with a couple of nice passes, but we got some twos. We were doing everything that we needed to do to get ourselves back into the game as far as the way we attacked, but it was just a different game."
2) "He's getting killed out there!" "No, no, no. He's getting mad!"
Devin McGlockton's return to the game helped BC stabilize the lower paint against Mintz's dribble-drive, but the modified 2-3 zone expanded easily into different looks that forced outside shooters to take bad looks. Starling scored 11 points in the second half but only went 3-for-8 from the floor with one missed attempt inside the three-point arc, and Mintz's 4-for-7 half spilled over to Quadir Copeland's 3-for-7 shooting off the bench.Â
Nobody aside from Benny Williams successfully grabbed rebounds, and even his five boards and two steals in the second half came with the added cost of four fouls in 15 minutes.
"We played man-to-man for the majority of the game," Grant said, "but we played a little zone, trapped, picked up the full court and tried to keep the ball away from Judah Mintz. We'd move back into a 2-1-2 and switch to a 1-1-3, but it was to keep them off-balance. Our guys all worked together, and we knew what we were trying to do to communicate. We did a good job executing that plan."
Mintz's elimination from the game plan had a spillover effect to the frontcourt because Syracuse was unable to gain space at the rim, and BC's substitution and insertions into the lineup proved Grant prophetic after he talked about the personnel dedicated to playing different styles.
He'd more specifically talked on the ACC weekly call about using different mentalities and systems for speeding a game up versus slowing it down, and he called out Kelley as a faster option compared to Jaeden Zackery's half-court style. Over the course of the second half, Grant deployed Kelley when he wanted to speed Syracuse into transition basketball only after Zackery roughed the Orange with a more methodical, physical style. Kelley's speed simultaneously released Claudell Harris Jr., and Grant eventually brought them both into the game to flip-flop possessions as the point guard within a game theory that threw Autry's man-to-man defense into chaos.
"The main thing was just matching their physicality," Zackery said. "The first time we played them, they were being physical, and we just let them do it. We knew we had to fight back in this game, so I don't think there was any major adjustment other than being more physical and doing the things that we worked on all year."
3) "Now, when you beat me, you beat me by one…ONE…second. Do you know what something like that does to a man of my intelligence?" "I thought you said you got over it." "I lied."
Boston College's last win over Syracuse came four years into my wedded bliss and three years before my oldest daughter was born. A team featuring the sharp-shooting trio of Ky Bowman, Jordan Chatman, and Jerome Robinson won 19 games and ended an eight-year postseason drought with a berth in the NIT.  The win over Syracuse was the penultimate regular season game, but the 15-point victory felt like a statement over a team that won 23 games and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen.Â
This is a very different Boston College program, but Tuesday night legitimately felt like the Eagles transitioned from one stage of their rebuilding effort. It created space between the four-win teams and the bottom two teams even though Georgia Tech's upset win over North Carolina added an unexpected third win to the Yellow Jackets' total. The breakaway pack housing the Orange and Virginia Tech slipped a little further back towards Clemson and Boston College after the Hokies lost to Duke on Monday night, but it brought the Eagles within shouting distance of Wake Forest and NC State with eyeballs on the higher goals protected by Virginia and the league's elite class as the team enters a bye weekend.
"I like to play," Grant laughed. "I like to play every other day or every couple of days, but 10 games into the conference schedule is the right time for a bye. I'm glad it came right in the middle so we can take deep breaths, assess what we're doing and where we need to improve, and let the guys rest a little bit. A bye week gives you the chance to do a lot of things, specifically, to continue to improve and let them be students for a couple of days."
Post-Game Huddle: Postseason Outlook
It's worth noting that a 13-win Boston College team still very much holds a shot at the postseason after beating Syracuse. Ten games remain towards the end of the season, and basing numbers off last season gives the Eagles an open door towards the NIT or the NCAA Tournament if they're able to improve and play their best basketball in February and March.
Next week opens the first of two matchups against Florida State, and a road trip to Cameron Indoor Stadium precedes home games against Louisville and Miami, both of which are on the schedule twice. No road games remain against teams that BC won't first see at home, and even the Virginia game is at home for a 9 p.m. start.
That favorable schedule teeters against an ACC that's underrated on the national scene. In his most recent Bracketology, ESPN's Joe Lunardi has three ACC teams in the tournament with two scheduled for the East Region that ends at Boston's TD Garden. North Carolina remains a No. 1 seed even after losing to Georgia Tech, but a No. 4 seed for Duke and a No. 6 seed for Clemson means there's work left for a conference that is more likely to send the remainder of its top seven teams to the NIT.
The last four teams in the tournament, though, add a bit of flair to BC's schedule because several of the last teams out of the tournament are considered national powerhouses. Down seasons by Villanova, Butler, Oregon, Cincinnati, and Gonzaga are clearly impacting the tournament selection this year, but not being able to go head-to-head means the Eagles need to win to push ahead of the NET rankings and more analytic-based judgments.
Looking solely at the KenPom ratings, the overall strength of the Big East keeps Villanova, Providence and Butler within 10 slots of one another, and both Boise State, Oregon, and Nebraska are in that same range around No. 50 nationally. Virginia Tech and Wake Forest are the lone ACC teams around there, and Gonzaga, a team considered out of Lunardi's bracket, is No. 19 in KenPom.
In contrast, BC sits 86th, but beating Syracuse, which was slightly ahead of the Eagles, pushed the team closer to Florida State at No. 71. Miami is likewise in that same range at No. 67 - as is No. 65 Pittsburgh and No. 58 Virginia. Where Seton Hall is a bubble team, that means the Eagles can make a run by beating the teams remaining on the schedule to move ahead of the analytics. Assuming there's a natural drop, BC then still very much has tournament hopes alive if it can make a run in the last month.
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/ Men's BasketballWednesday, October 28
Wednesday, October 28
Wednesday, October 28
Wednesday, October 28
