CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – It was just the right situation. Maryland, the clear favorite in the game, had just scored their signature win of the season over Duke. Many teams have a letdown following such a big win unless they have had a number of them, and that’s not the case for this Maryland team as they have a dearth of such wins. The Terrapins are also young. Sure enough, it was also visible in Boston College’s 69-58 victory over Maryland on Tuesday night, but there was much more.
Boston College is growing up before our eyes.
“I don’t know if I’ve been more proud of my team than tonight,” said head coach Steve Donahue. “I thought we just played really inspired basketball for 40 minutes.”
Boston College won Tuesday night’s game because they wanted it more than Maryland did. That can be seen in the stat sheet in one key area, but watching the game would tell you that much more. Boston College had a 37-32 rebounding edge against the team that leads the ACC in rebounding margin by far, while the Eagles came in being out-rebounded on the season. More than that, though, the Eagles always seemed to get loose balls, and in the final minutes when they took over the game they also seemed to score off them and in general off broken plays.
Boston College had two 17-5 runs in the second half, and the decisive one late in the game was where this was most visible. Almost every other possession, the Eagles got a loose ball and scored off a broken play, or got to the foul line and cashed in. They gained confidence once they made a few of those plays and got the lead.
Maryland may have looked like a team having a letdown, but Boston College took advantage of that and had something to do with it. They had a great game plan to keep Alex Len from beating them after he had 16 points and 13 rebounds against them in College Park last month. It worked, as Len had just four points on 1-5 shooting before fouling out and was never really a factor. Maryland shot under 36 percent from the field, including 24.1 percent in the second half.
Boston College was also a tough matchup for Maryland from a personnel standpoint. The Eagles love to play four perimeter players at a time, and many teams have had to adjust because their power forward can’t guard someone on the perimeter for 40 minutes. Maryland is bigger, but they never had much of an edge even when BC went with a more traditional lineup that included either Dennis Clifford or Andrew Van Nest alongside Ryan Anderson. BC outscored them 22-16 in the paint, an area where the Terrapins figured to have an appreciable advantage.
Let’s give this Boston College team its due for growing through a lot of adversity. The losses have piled up, and as that has happened questions get raised about whether this team has the talent to mature into winners in the ACC. Some of the losses have been tough ones, as the Eagles have given the likes of Miami, Duke and NC State all they can handle before succumbing in each case. The Eagles are not far from being a .500 team or better in ACC play, and they finally broke through against a Maryland team that had just worked its way into the NCAA Tournament conversation.
Related to that, one player especially worthy of praise for overcoming adversity is freshman Olivier Hanlan. Against Miami last month, Hanlan was 5-10 from the foul line, including a miss at the end that could have sent the game into overtime. How has he rebounded from that? He has averaged 18.3 points per game since then and now has all the momentum for ACC Rookie of the Year. On Tuesday he came up big with a career-high 26 points on 9-14 shooting and seven rebounds, much of which came in the second half as he scored 19 of those points on 7-9 shooting. Hanlan is the only freshman in the top 10 in the ACC in scoring, and in conference games he ranks even higher than overall.
“I thought he did almost everything right, made almost every right decision,” Donahue said of Hanlan.
Related to that, the Eagles were 21-22 from the free throw line on the night, including 16 straight in the final 5:04 of the game. In the final two minutes, they sealed it with 10 of those free throws. Hanlan was 5-6 from the line on the evening.
“It’s been tough lately (at the end of games) but we did well today,” said Hanlan. “It takes stops and starts on the defensive end.”
Hanlan’s rebound from the tough game against Miami isn’t all. Boston College won on Tuesday night despite not shooting well from long range and on a night where Ryan Anderson had just two points on 1-4 shooting. Anderson wasn’t a big factor offensively, but he had a role in neutralizing Len at the defensive end. He also had good help from Eddie Odio, who has found his niche on this team and has become a fan favorite.
Odio is becoming the guy who’s always around the ball and has a flair for the spectacular play. One that stood out was a play where he blocked a shot by Len, then helped strip him of the ball just before Len fouled out. He doesn’t strike you as a player who might put up the kind of numbers he did on Tuesday night – eight points, a career-high 11 rebounds and six blocked shots – but he’s emerged as a key piece and a fan favorite. After the game, chants of his last name could be heard.
“That was Eddie being a force,” said Donahue. “He’s so athletic.”
Boston College has been improving as the season has gone along, but wins have remained hard to come by. They have become hard to guard, and they have given teams all they can handle, but wins are what make the difference. Tuesday night could be a turning point since they finally got a reward for the effort they put in, and it might further accelerate the growth process.
