Virginia 65, Boston College 51: Boredom Reigns as Eagles Lose

On the bright side, there was no tease by the Boston College basketball team directed at its fans today.

In Charlottesville, the Virginia Cavaliers defeated the Eagles, 65-51, as they look to keep their NCAA Tournament hopes alive. The loss drops BC to 9-10 (1-5) on the season, giving them four straight losses.

Just as in the Maryland game, Boston College had extreme difficulty scoring in the first ten minutes of the opening half, missing shots from long-range and even shorter range. Then, in another mirror of the contest against the Terrapins, BC exploded on a long scoring run (15-3 in this particular game) to take a 21-17 lead. Aside from a few ties, the Eagles took a 26-24 advantage into the half.

When Virginia came out of the locker room for the second, they were ready to go, and Boston College never woke up. The Cavaliers took the lead for good just minutes in and the Eagles never got it back, slipping deeper and deeper into their slumber until the Wahoos ultimately claimed a 14-point victory.

The Virginia defense played well enough, but one should not be so quick to give them all of the credit. BC had a host of unforced errors in turning the ball over and also missed more than their fair share of open looks. The Eagles looked badly out of sync for much of the contest and it was as much their fault as it was Virginia’s. To the Cavaliers’ credit, Ryan Anderson had his shots in the low post blocked four times in the first half, which is uncharacteristic but nevertheless a sign of solid defense.

This was a sub-standard effort by the Eagles, the 2011 core of which has just played its fiftieth game. In the other ACC contests they had lost, BC at least found a way to be competitive in the second half, but this time, there was no such luck. BC might as well have lost by 40 with the way they looked frustrated and incapable. The Eagles played about ten good minutes in the contest — the last ten of the first half — but got off to another bad start and were invisible for most of the second half. From a Boston College perspective and in terms of competitiveness, it was probably the worst game they’ve played since Harvard nearly two months ago.

Are the Eagles running out of gas? Are they giving up on this season? Are they just that far out of their depth? All of these things can be debated, but one thing is for certain: the good feelings are over and the focus once more is all about next year’s make-or-break season.

BC returns to action on Tuesday night to face North Carolina at Conte Forum.