Eagles Need More of Friday’s Effort From Sanders
CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – There wasn’t any doubt that Rakim Sanders was capable of this. It was only a question of how consistently he could do it. And thus far in his still-young college career, there hasn’t been a time when his team needed it from him this much.
Sanders scored a career-high 24 points on 8-11 shooting and grabbed seven rebounds to lead Boston College to an 80-65 win over Central Connecticut on Friday night.
With star point guard Tyrese Rice suspended for Friday’s opener because of a violation of team rules, the Eagles faced a big question of how the offense would run. Rice means everything to this team’s offense: he’s their go-to guy, top scorer, point guard and leader on the floor, the last in part because he’s the only senior on the team. Last season, his supporting cast was very inconsistent, so the big question coming into the season was if that would change.
The win was hardly assured, even though the final score and a one-time 23-point lead in the second half might imply otherwise. Central Connecticut ran out to an 8-1 lead and never trailed until almost nine minutes into the game. The Blue Devils looked more athletic and got just about every loose ball, and on several occasions scored off a broken play that resulted.
“There were times that we did a great job defending, but didn’t come up with the loose ball,” said head coach Al Skinner. “That was a little frustrating for me, and I’m sure, for them.”
In the latter part of the first half, Sanders took over for the Eagles. With Central Connecticut holding a 25-22 lead, Sanders proceeded to score the next 12 Eagle points as they turned that deficit into a 36-28 halftime lead. The game wasn’t a contest for much of the second half.
This team has some pieces, to be sure, but without Rice the Eagles don’t pass the “look test” and then some. On Friday night, the Eagles started five sophomores with Rice having to sit on the bench in street clothes. Tyler Roche is the team’s only other upperclassman, so this team has a lot of youth, and all of the sophomores who were freshmen last season (one sat out as a transfer) struggled with consistency last season.
While freshmen Evan Ravenel and Dallas Elmore, the latter of whom hasn’t been fully healthy of late, acquitted themselves reasonably well, the most highly-touted freshman looked like a freshman. Reggie Jackson was just 1-7 from the field, but more importantly, didn’t make a lot of good plays or look at home for a lot of his minutes. A prime example was when he drove on a fast break, but instead of stopping and popping for a ten-foot shot, charged right into a defender for an offensive foul just as he dished the ball off for a jumper.
It’s easy to notice Sanders’ numbers on the night, but the play of Vermont transfer Joe Trapani can’t be overlooked. He filled the stat sheet with 13 points and team highs of nine rebounds and six assists and just one turnover. One can never really figure how a player will fare when transferring up, as Trapani has done, but if Friday night is any indication, he’ll certainly help this team.
The first game of the season is a time when teams generally have some issues, and by the end of the season they don’t bear much resemblance to the team that played the opening game. The Eagles were no different, and not having their best player and team leader added to that. They had some offensive struggles and were beaten on the glass early, and also didn’t run as effectively as they could have. By the end of the game, they had an edge on the glass and a 21-10 edge in second-chance points.
“Our transition game wasn’t as good as I’d like to see it,” said Skinner. “I was glad about the way we ran up the floor, but we didn’t make the plays we needed to make or complete the plays that we needed to.”
Some of that, certainly, will get better when Rice returns on Monday night. Winning without their leader on Friday is an encouraging sign, but there’s only so much that can be taken from it since they beat an even younger team and struggled early on. But if Sanders can now do consistently what he did on Friday night, one big positive will ultimately come out of this game for the Eagles.
