Quick hitters as we head into another weekend, the first full weekend of Ivy League play:
- Boston College is suddenly relevant again after knocking off Clemson 75-69 on Tuesday night. The Eagles looked dead after a 1-3 start in ACC play, with all three losses being by double digits, and a tough loss at Virginia Tech on Saturday didn’t help. But the Eagles took over Tuesday’s game with the press – something that has more often killed the Eagles when other teams have done it – and played their best game in a while. Reggie Jackson sparked the Eagles as soon as he came off the bench, and led the way with 18 points and seven assists.
While he’s the second-youngest player on the team (Brady Heslip has displaced him as the youngest), Jackson clearly has a keen sense of where his team stands in the grand scheme of things.“We figured, we want to win to be a contender in this league and make the NCAA Tourney,” Jackson said. “Also, I preached to the team when we came out at halftime that if we want (the fans) to keep showing up, we’re going to have to get W’s, because this is basically a professional city. With the Red Sox, the Patriots and Celtics, if we want people to show up, we’re going to have to put up more W’s and stop letting people down.”
The Eagles still have a lot of work to do to reach the NCAA Tournament, but knocking off Clemson makes the case that a run by them can’t be counted out just yet.
- Clemson was without junior point guard Demontez Stitt due to a sprained foot, but that wasn’t why the Tigers lost. In the first half, after running out to an 8-3 lead they simply didn’t look like they were in the game. The offense didn’t have much life to it, and Oliver Purnell hasn’t had quite the depth he’s had in the past as his freshmen don’t appear to be as good right now as those he’s had in past years were as freshmen to help spell the starters for a few minutes.
“For whatever reason, I thought we were a bit flat in the first half – flat-footed, we weren’t tough with the basketball, missed layups, and just weren’t sharp and tough,” Purnell said after the game.
- Purnell added that while Stitt still played over 30 minutes in games since the injury, he turned it over again in each game and got to the point where it would be more prudent to hold him out given the time in between games. The Tigers don’t play again until they host Maryland on Sunday.
- One had to wonder how Providence would bounce back from the meltdown against South Florida. In their first game after it, the Friars showed no ill effects in beating Connecticut 81-66.
“I couldn’t have dreamed that we’d bounce back like this,” said head coach Keno Davis, after what he called “our best game of the year.”
- Bryant stayed with Fairleigh Dickinson on Thursday for a while, but the Knights had too much in the backcourt with Terence Grier and Sean Baptiste, who combined to go 7-9 from long range. The Bulldogs, who remain short-handed due to injuries as Cecil Gresham is done for the season, aren’t far away but that first win is still proving elusive.
“I can’t fault our effort in any way,” said head coach Tim O’Shea. “I said in the locker room, they really are a much better team than they were a few months ago, it’s just a matter of trying to get over the hump here.”
- Santa Clara made a pretty good bid to knock off Gonzaga, but the Bulldogs played like a conference leader in coming back to basically win the game going away on the road. There might not be a player more valuable to his team than Matt Bouldin is to Gonzaga, and Thursday night marked the eighth straight game in which he played at least 37 minutes. With Demetri Goodson having some growing pains at the point, Bouldin has had to handle a lot of responsibility, but he just keeps winning games.
