The week ahead
By Joe Micik
Men’s hockey
BC hockey, formerly ranked 9th (new poll comes out today), is four points behind New Hampshire with four games to go, but are only two points clear of Maine for second place. This week, BC will host 8th-place Merrimack at Conte Forum on Tuesday night and then hosts UMass on Friday night. New Hampshire has a home-and-home against pesky Northeastern while Maine plays two at Merrimack.
Ideally, you’d like to see BC with a net gain of at least two points to try to narrow that 4-point gap even further. A win on Tuesday night to cut the deficit to two would put pressure on UNH to have to have a good weekend. Hopefully NU can at least be a pain in the ass at home.
Men’s basketball
Well, alright. They won a game this weekend and sit at 13-13 (4-8). Granted, they beat one of the crappiest North Carolina teams I can remember, but it’s still a win, and it’s still all about ACC Tournament positioning. I’m not going to be deluded into thinking that this is the start of something big, because look what happened after they beat Clemson on ESPN. They can, however, win a few more games and try to move up into that 7/10 ACC Tournament matchup. Consequently, they could also lose more games and still get into that 7/10 matchup, but not in the way I’d prefer.
Virginia Tech will come to the Heights on Wednesday and then the team will go to Atlanta to play Georgia Tech on Saturday. At this point, I won’t even venture guesses as to how those games will go. They could win or lose both: neither would surprise me. Two wins this week would put BC in fairly good position to move up to 7th in the conference, especially a win against Georgia Tech (because the Yellow Jackets stand in BC’s way). Virginia Tech looks very much like a tournament team so that would also be a gratifying win.
Baseball
So they couldn’t sweep Tulane, but they’re still off to a good 2-1 start. On Friday night they will play at Auburn, and on Saturday they will play Florida Atlantic. They could surely at least get their third win this week.
Other Sports
Our women’s basketball team hosts Maryland on Thursday, needing some more ACC wins. Track, softball, skiing, tennis, etc. are all also in action this week. Softball is playing in the Stetson University Tournament in Deland, Florida.