Sad Saturday: BC Basketball Falls to Wake; Hockey Loses to UNH

Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports

The rest of the week featured some good things for Boston College sports, but Saturday was hardly a banner day for the Eagles.

Boston College men’s basketball fell to the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, 75-72, while #2 men’s hockey lost to the #4 New Hampshire Wildcats, 2-1. Basketball falls to 9-7 (1-2) on their season, while hockey has split their home-and-home series with one of their main conference rivals to hold at 21 points.

In basketball, Boston College fell behind by double-digits late in the second half and were beset by a number of issues throughout the game. Turnovers, which had not been a problem for the Eagles against Virginia Tech, came back with a vengeance against Wake Forest. In total, BC committed 17 of them en route to what ended up being a close loss thanks to a very late scoring run. Further, BC did not get much of any bench production, Patrick Heckmann fouled out again, and Joe Rahon had a disappointing performance. Meanwhile, Wake Forest was hot, shooting 51% against BC, but got away with some bad mistakes near the end of the game.

It was not a memorable performance by the Eagles in any respect. BC got several chances late, especially after a few key Wake turnovers, but they did not take advantage. Like the other ACC loss, NC State, this was a winnable game that got away from them. It was at least somewhat encouraging for Boston College to be able to fight back at the end, but they had opportunities to finish the comeback and did not.

In Durham, NH, shortly after the basketball team was defeated, the hockey team followed up their dominant performance on Friday night with a close loss on Saturday night. New Hampshire outshot the Eagles 39-23, sending Parker Milner to a hard-luck loss in which he made 37 saves. The second period, the only one in which the Wildcats had more shots, was ghastly in its lopsidedness as UNH outshot BC 21-3. In spite of defeat, Milner managed to earn third-star honors.

Boston College’s lone goal came off of the stick of Brooks Dyroff in the third period at 7:57 (unassisted), but the Wildcats netted the game-winner with less than five minutes to go in regulation. That goal was the first of Dyroff’s BC hockey career. Johnny Gaudreau was surprisingly inconsequential (zero points, -1 rating), but he is allowed to have an off-night every now and then.

One must take the good with the bad in sports, and for BC, this was one of those bad nights.