Coming off of a road loss at Pitt in which the Irish allowed the Panthers to shoot 58 percent, Mike Brey and the boys were looking to bounce back on a cold and snowy Wednesday night against a sub-par Boston College squad. The first 19:55 of the ball game went about as well as you could hope, as the Irish came out aggressive, shot the ball well, and we’re active on defense, forcing turnovers.
The Irish led by 25 at one point, but BC cut that lead to 45-21 with a Dimitri Batten half-court heave at the first half buzzer. That would be a sign of things to come, as BC’s star Olivier Hanlen took over the game in the second half, hitting four straight three-point shots to cut the Irish lead to four with under two minutes left.
Thanks to solid contributions from Zach Auguste and Steve Vasturia, the Irish would hold on to win, moving to 21-3 overall and 9-2 in the ACC to hold and holding on to second place in the ACC. After blowing an opportunity to tie Virginia in the loss column on Saturday, and with a trip to Cameron Indoor looming, the Irish have will have to find the same focus and intensity to match their performance from the first half of the conference season moving forward.
They did not have that intensity at Pitt until Jerian Grant took that game over, which was too little too late, and they displayed that intensity for about 19 minutes of the win versus BC before becoming disinterested and letting BC back in the game. The next few practices before the Duke game Saturday represent a turning point for the Irish this season, as the best way to find the right focus is to string together a few great practices. We’ll really find out how much tougher-than-last-year this team is if they can put together a 40 minute, high-intensity effort at Duke, and then turn that in to a strong finish to the regular season.
After having watched Mike Brey-coached teams for a while now, I can say with some confidence that the seven-deep rotation we saw against BC last night is what we’ll get for the rest of the year. We may see Austin Torres on the floor in certain situations in weeks to come, but I’d really love it after Brey found a 9th guy to step up and give us minutes with 11:52 left in the game and the Irish up 51-33. Against a team like BC, that’s the perfect time to rest guys like Jerian Grant and Pat Connaughton. But, I digress.
If the Irish can get it turned around and finish the season out strong, it will go a long way in seeding for the ACC tournament and the NCAA tournament. Seeding will be part of the overall equation that determines the level of this team’s postseason success, and with a strong finish plus a run to the finals of the ACC tournament, the Irish will have an argument for a one or two seed. However, finish the season the way they finished the BC game last night, and we’re looking at a top-15 finish and a potential 3-4 seed. If the Irish can string together a few good practices, which falls squarely on the shoulders of the leaders for this team, they’ll be in good shape to finish out the season. We’ll see how big of an “if” that is this Saturday.
