Mark L. Baer-USA TODAY Sports

Beating the Duke Blue Devils is apparently more hazardous to your team’s NCAA Tournament bubble health than once thought. Boston College Eagles basketball has made sure of that twice.

On Sunday afternoon, the Eagles defeated the Virginia Cavaliers, 53-52, in a last-minute comeback by the home team. With the win, BC is now 13-16 (5-11) on the season. Boston College has now won three games in a row at Conte Forum.

The script seemed the same as in many other Eagles games this season: an ice-cold start for Boston College, a scoring run later in the first half, and eventual cooling in the second half. As Virginia got out to an 11-point lead, it certainly looked like BC was on their way to another loss, but the Cavaliers went cold and the Eagles kept pounding away. Eddie Odio and Patrick Heckmann, amongst others, helped get BC back into the game late, but with only eight seconds to go, it was all Joe Rahon. Down 52-50 at the time, the freshman guard for the Eagles hit a three-pointer with mere seconds remaining and drew a simultaneous foul. Rahon missed the ensuing free throw, while Virginia made the half-court shot that would have won the game — it only came a half-second too late.

While the officiating was questionable at times, and that is certainly nothing to celebrate, give credit to the Eagles for persevering. This is the sort of game that Boston College has been keeping close but ultimately losing, especially on the road. There is a different dynamic at Conte Forum, however, and the Eagles play much better at home than they do anywhere else. BC hardly played a stellar game, but today it was good enough.

The contest means little in terms of anything relative to this season’s end result, but as far as the ACC Tournament is concerned, the Eagles have the potential to sneak into either the 7-10 game or the 8-9 game in the first round. Given how BC does not play well away from Conte Forum, the odds would probably be stacked against them, but either one of those matchups would be more favorable than having to play a five or six-seed.

As for Virginia, their loss to Boston College has likely put them on the wrong side of the bubble again. Beating Duke several days ago appeared to have set them on the right path, but not for long. If nothing else this season, the Eagles may be able to say that they had a role in knocking two conference foes out of the tournament running.

BC returns to the court on Tuesday for their road finale in Clemson. The regular-season finale is at Conte Forum on Saturday afternoon against Georgia Tech.

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.