A Tough Two Weeks for B.C.

A few weeks ago, I was jotting down story ideas in class while my classics professor led a discussion on whether or not Cleopatra was a babe. (She wasn't, but more on that later). I came up with a bunch of ideas - the discussion went on for a while - and one of them was to write a piece on the unsung Eagles of Boston College. At that point, they were on top of the ACC but somehow unranked. Sure, they suffered some bad nonconference losses early in the season (Providence, Vermont, Duquesne), but the Eagles were rampaging through the ACC with their only league blemishes coming on the road against ranked opponents.

Then came last week. ESPN has dubbed this current week "Judgment Week" (whatever that means), but BC's judgment week fell a week ago with home tilts against Duke and North Carolina. BC needed at least a split to cement itself as a ranked team and maintain its presence around the top of the ACC. But with the way that coach Al Skinner had his guys playing, even without center Sean Williams who was dismissed for unknown reasons (he's been on one strike away from getting kicked off for his marijuana habit since he stepped on campus), I was thinking the Eagles would take care of the struggling Blue Devils (four straight losses coming in) and then try to hang with the Tar Heels and see if the ball bounced the Eagles way in the last few minutes.

Quick digression: If it was in fact drugs that got Williams kicked off the team, the guy has to have a serious problem to not just stay away from weed for a few months. He was a certain lottery pick. All he had to do was stay on a division one basketball team until the end of March. This should not be that hard. He could have earned the type signing bonus that accompanies a lottery pick and, because his problem would likely eventually get the better of him, mess with drugs too much and still find himself out of the league in a few years. It would be the same in the end, yes, but in this scenario he would be set for life as long as he paid someone to smartly invest his money (or read "Investing for Dummies"). Is that too cynical?

Back to BC. Apparently there is a rule in college basketball that Coach K can't lose five games in a row. The rule, no doubt, is sponsored by American Express. Care to know why I'm sure this rule exists? Because Josh McRoberts scored 18 and Greg "I make Chris Duhon look like Pete Maravich" Paulus went for fifteen. That's right folks, Duke's offense was led by McRoberts and Paulus. This does not happen every day. In fact, it pretty much only happens when Coach K is in danger of losing five in a row. Weird.

The final was Duke 78, BC 70 but it was never really that close. BC trailed by eleven at the half and made a run down the stretch but Paulus always had the answer - never thought I would write those words. On the bright side for the Eagles, they found that point guard Tyrese Rice is A) the real deal and B) the real deal in big games. He got to the hole almost whenever he wanted and ran the offense consistently. Every so often, he ignites his team with a circus shot or a three. And he wants the ball in his hands down the stretch. He alone makes this team capable of pulling off an upset in March.

Rice played just as well against UNC, only to see his team falter down the stretch en route to a 77-72 loss. Rice had 20, eclipsed on his squad by Jared Dudley who scored 22 but missed three key free throws down the stretch. That sequence was almost hard to believe. Duds had the chance to tie the ballgame after being fouled while shooting a three. He was at home, he was in front of a crowd that quieted down for his benefit, he's the front-runner for ACC player of the year (though that's an interesting debate that will be discussed in a column next week), and he missed all three free throws.

The next day, Dudley told a reporter he was over the misses. He may be, but it doesn't look like the Eagles are. In desperate need of a good showing at Virginia Tech on Wednesday, BC trailed by more than 25 for much of the game and ended up with a 17-point loss. That defeat dropped the Eagles to 9-5 in the ACC, good enough for fourth in the league. BC could drop further if they pull another no-show act against Clemson or Georgia Tech in its last two contest, both of which have been inconsistent but have enough talent to match up well with the Eagles. They've gone from a possible four seed to legitimately wondering if they'll be seeded high enough to wear their white shirts in the first round.

To recap: Two weeks ago, BC was sitting pretty atop the ACC while I was listening to a discussion of whether Cleopatra was pretty. Newly found coins from ancient Rome show that she looks more like her boy Mark Antony than Elizabeth Taylor. It's too bad she wasn't good looking but at least she looked like her significant other. Sort of like if Drew Neitzel and Britney Spears started dating. It's also too bad, at least for poor Bostonians like myslef, that BC is looking about as good as Cleopatra these days.