The Eagles are for Real: No Matter What I Thought

As our longtime readers know, journalistic ethics is something that we hold sacred at the Stool. We have no Jayson Blairs filing fake stories from exotic locations. There are no Mike Barnicles or Ken Powers at Barstool cutting and pasting better writers’ better-written stories. In fact, the only fake things in our paper our some of our models’ bust lines.
In that spirit of uncompromising integrity that Barstool is renowned for, it is time that I admit to all the SuperFans out there that I was dead wrong about Boston College men’s basketball. Here are a few snippets of what I wrote about the Eagles’ hoops’ team in November:
“BC is not ready for the ACC… Get ready for the classic BC-Clemson hoops showdown on a Wednesday night in January- Hey, don’t laugh SuperFans; that may be the only game the Eagles win… While BC won’t be the worse team in the ACC in either football or basketball, the chances of them finishing any better than .500 in either sport over the foreseeable future are very, very slim.”

After watching the Eagles smoothly and efficiently finish of Syracuse last Saturday at the Conte Forum to run their record to 22-1, I am man enough to admit that I was an absolute moron, too interested in ripping the innocent SuperFans to actually check out the true state of BC hoops. Several months after making my idiotic remarks about BC hoops, I can say now what SuperFans have been proclaiming for months: The Eagles are a legitimate national championship contender and next year, BC will be in the hunt for the ACC title.

In a year in which there is no run-away favorite for the NCAA Championship, the Eagles look capable of knocking off any of the top contenders. While Illinois’ unbeaten run is impressive, there are at least ten other teams which have to be considered legit shots to cut down the nets in St. Louis: UNC, Wake Forest, Duke, Kansas, Oklahoma State, Syracuse, Arizona, Gonzaga, Kentucky and of course, Boston College. At this point, unless BC melts down in its final weeks of the regular season and implodes at the Big East Championship, the Eagles should receive no lower than a two seed. That lofty seeding virtually assures that BC will play its first two games in Worcester, a quick ride from Chestnut Hill for all the SuperFans.
It is rarified air for the Eagles and their fans who can be forgiven for rushing the court after beating the lower-rated Orange. In a game in which the SuperFans actually lived up to their title, never sitting down, chanting and cheering throughout the entire game and generally behaving like the other college hoops fans they usually see on television, their collective decision to rush the court can be chalked up to youthful exuberance. Hopefully, it never happens again, but I’ll give the SuperFans a pass on this one.
But now that the Eagles have staked their claim to a top seed in the tournament and guaranteed that half the office pools in New England have them reaching the Final Four, here are five things that BC needs to do to play into April.

1. Win the Big East tournament. At this point the Big East tourney is all about seeding for the Eagles. Win and they are almost guaranteed a one seed in the NCAA’s. If they lose and teams like Illinois, UNC, Kansas and Kentucky win their respective conference tournaments, as a two or three seed the Eagles could face a tougher road against mid-range teams from the power conferences or mid-major teams like Pacific, George Washington or Southern Illinois.

2. Play like their coach. Al Skinner is famously unflappable and his team plays in his image. Against Syracuse, BC played out of control for about one minute. Other than those sixty seconds of disarray, the Eagles never rushed, never forced shots and generally stayed calm against a team many experts picked to win the Big East. In the NCAA’s, BC needs to run its offense and exert its will on lower-ranked teams.

3. Don’t get in a track meet. Unlike other potential one seeds, Illinois, North Carolina and Wake Forest, which are led by their backcourts, the Eagles are driven by their frontcourt. While Louis Hinnant, Sean Marshall, Steve Hailey and Jermaine Watson are solid, the Eagles will live and die with Craig Smith, Jared Dudley, Nate Doornekamp and Sean Williams in the paint.

4. Don’t fall behind. BC is not going to blow out anyone in the NCAA’s beyond its first-round patsy. It doesn’t have the offensive firepower to overwhelm better teams. But more importantly, the Eagles can’t fall behind by double digits. That isn’t to say that BC isn’t good enough to come back from a double digit deficit at halftime but the Eagles will be living very dangerously expecting their conservative, half-court offense to erase leads against talented opponents.

5. Jump on Dudley’s back. While Craig Smith is the anchor of BC’s offense, Dudley loves the spotlight and just makes all the big plays. He is BC’s most versatile offensive weapon and a matchup problem for almost every team in the field. While teams can limit Smith by doubling him with taller, athletic big-man, Dudley enters the tournament as virtually unguardable and unafraid to take every big shot.

If the Eagles can manage those five things, there is no reason that they shouldn’t be playing in St. Louis in April. SuperFans, it may be time to come up with some new cheers.

Jamie Chisholm