VCU 69, Boston College 50: Rams Crush Hapless Eagles

Anthony Gruppuso-USA TODAY Sports

On Saturday evening at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, the VCU Rams defeated the Boston College Eagles, 69-50.

With the loss, the Eagles fell to 4-9 on the season, defeated in their last game of 2013. Boston College has one non-conference game remaining against Harvard in Cambridge on January 1. The Eagles also won no Division I games in December.

The game was replete with errors for the Eagles:

• 23 turnovers (season high)
• 3-for-18 (16.7%) three-pointers
• 17 first-half points
• 50 points total (season low)
• 38.6% field goal shooting

Blame VCU’s “havoc” for as much of the offensive incompetence as you like, because it was definitely a factor, but anyone who has seen the Eagles play this season knows that they are not impervious to sloppy play. After a mutually-terrible first half in which Boston College trailed only 22-17, the Eagles immediately fell apart in the second and never mounted a challenge. The turnovers, however, did mount and so did VCU’s lead, stretching well into the twenties at one point.

The Eagles look like a team that has checked out, and Steve Donahue looks like a coach who is coming to the realization that his time at Boston College is about to end. At 4-9, the season is long over and the prospect of some sincerely ugly ACC losses looms large. The time for this bunch to step up to the mark was December, and aside from struggling to beat a Division II school, they accomplished the precise opposite.

Now, Eagles fans can settle in for what essentially amounts to two and a half months of playing out the string.