BC 81, Wake 67: Taking care of business again

It was somewhat of a tale of two halves for the Eagles, but BC’s 14-point win over Wake Forest has officially moved them on to the quarterfinals of the 2011 ACC Tournament. Boston College now slides up to 20-11 (10-7) on the season, and are on the brink of an NCAA Tournament at-large bid, save for a disastrous result tomorrow (or bad bubble results from here until Sunday).

In the first half, Boston College put on an offensive show that would strike fear into the rest of the ACC. BC netted 47 points and made nine three-pointers. The second half wasn’t nearly as good, however, as BC seemed unable to sustain any sort of offensive rhythm, and kept letting Wake Forest creep in closer (though the Deacs never got the game back into single-digits). Still, the Demon Deacons are a bad team and it showed, as BC was able to hold the line and stop whatever momentum they may have been gathering, coming away with another comfortable win despite a lackluster second half. Thanks largely to the first, BC had three players in excess of 20 points, and they were the three you might expect: Reggie Jackson, Joe Trapani, and Biko Paris.

The turnovers were an issue once again. BC had 15 against Wake in game one, and 12 in this meeting. That kind of sloppy play will not get them past Clemson tomorrow (2:30pm). The free throw shooting could have also been better, as BC was 13-20 (65%) from the line.

This was not only Boston College’s fourth-straight win, it was their fourth-straight double-digit win. They didn’t seem so hot towards the end of the game, but Boston College is playing good basketball overall right now. If nothing else, I expect them to give Clemson a game, but that’s for tomorrow.

As stated earlier, the Eagles now have a 20-win season here in 2010-2011, and one where the Eagles were victorious ten times in conference play. Those numbers might not mean as much as they used to in the NCAA Tournament scheme of things, but it’s still a very good season for BC that is deserving of praise. The goal tomorrow will be to make it 21 wins.