Slow Pace Nearly Stops 'Pack

A little bit at a time, these Eagles are getting closer to playing a complete basketball game. The men's basketball team fell to the North Carolina State Wolfpack 56-51 at Conte Forum last night, but they avoided the epic collapse that has haunted them at the end of games lately. Although the improvement came in a loss, head coach Steve Donahue was pleased with his team's effort, especially after being blown out at NC State earlier in the season.

"This was our first opportunity to play a team we've played earlier, and they really handed it to us down there," Donahue said. "The key things we really talked about were points in the paint, offensive rebounds, rebounding in general, playing physical and tough, and we owned all those categories."

Boston College outrebounded the Wolfpack and limited their dominant forwards, C.J. Leslie and Richard Howell, to just three offensive rebounds. The Eagles also only allowed 18 points in the paint while putting up 26 of their own. Holding NC State to 42.4 percent from the field, BC put up one of its best defensive performances of the season. Big men Dennis Clifford and Ryan Anderson both defended the post well and crashed the boards with a fury.

The Eagles' main problem came on the offensive end. After struggling with turnovers in the first matchup with the Wolfpack, Donahue decided he wanted to slow the game down and limit the amount of possessions.

Instead of rushing the ball up the court and flying through their motion offense, taking the first good shot, the Eagles did their best to look and attack around the 15-second mark on the shot clock.

Unfortunately for BC, the NC State defense was stifling tonight and allowed few easy looks. Guards Jordan Daniels and Lonnie Jackson ended up forcing tough shots as the shot clock wound down over and over again.

The defense kept BC in the game tonight, but the offense held them back from winning. Jackson was asked if it was frustrating not being able to push the ball, but he stood by his coach's decision

"I'm going to follow the game plan," Jackson said. "What coach wants to do, limit the possessions of the game, I completely agree with that. If that's what it's going to take to win, I'm going to definitely be on board with that."

Jackson opened up the second half with a big and-one 3-pointer that gave the BC offense a spark. Matt Humphrey and the rest of the Eagles began forcing turnovers that ignited a BC run, but the Wolfpack kept responding.

In the end, the slow-down offense was too constricting for the Eagles to put up enough points for the victory. BC didn't get the win, but it also did not suffer a huge late-game meltdown which has become commonplace lately.

"This was different than the last couple games," Donahue said. "I thought this went right down to the last couple of possessions."

Donahue reiterated that he does not want to stick to this strategy all the time because of the burden it puts on the offense, but that he was proud of his team for adjusting.

"I think we've got to continue to monitor what our best plan is to play," Donahue said. "We've got to share the ball, we've got to be great with the basketball. We've got to make sure that we don't get caught up in too many games where we are going up and down. The mental and physical fatigue with these guys at this point in the season, for all these young kids, is really hard."

One reason the Eagles struggled offensively wasn't just the stalling, but also their mode of attack. BC kept swinging the ball around, hoping NC State would tire and slip up, but that rarely happened.

The offense was at its best when Jordan Daniels and Jackson ran pick-and-roll with Clifford. The few times BC did this, it resulted in great looks that usually fell. Clifford is a great roller to the rim, and Daniels has proven excellent court vision.

The Eagles keep getting closer to putting a full game together. With every game, hope for the future is growing stronger, and the present product looks even better.

The Eagles had the chance to tie the game late, but Jackson passed up a 3-pointer and tried to draw a foul without success.

"Honestly I should've just caught and shot it instead of drawing the foul, but next time, you live and you learn, so next time I'm just going to let that go," Jackson said.