The Upset That No One Witnessed

Not a soul on campus was oblivious to Saturday's rematch against the visiting Duke Blue Devils. Many were shelling out $70 for a chance to see Al Skinner and the boys shock the eternally smug and confusingly weird-looking (Kyle Singler, I'm talking to you) Blue Devils for the second straight season inside Conte.

Two days before, unknown to almost all Boston College students, another Duke game took place, and the result may have unintentionally become the best-kept secret of BC athletics. As small packs of pregaming 21-year-olds gathered around campus, while others meandered into An Tua Nua or Cityside, one of the biggest upsets in Eagle history was taking place.

And nobody knew about it.

The 12-10 women's basketball team welcomed No. 6 Duke, a practically untouchable 18-3 on the year, into a virtually empty Conte Forum. Only the media, family friends, and a handful of true Superfans witnessed the improbable 61-57 upset of the Blue Devils.
Only those select few watched the entire bench empty and storm the center of the court, an immeasurable sense of euphoria shared among the dozen girls who pulled off what no one thought they could.

If I were a truly devoted BC sports fan with nothing but time, I would have been there, but it would be a lie to say that I was. The closest I came to seeing Duke go down for the second year in a row (and we all knew the men didn't stand a chance, didn't we?) was tuning into online updates after a committee meeting ended.

Downright stunned that the Eagles were keeping it close, I checked my e-mail and caught up on what was going on in the sports world. Yet what was going on in the sports world was a 10-minute walk from the all-too-familiar confines of McElroy.

With only a few minutes left, my eyes stayed peeled to the Gametracker window. Duke would pull within a basket, but the Eagles always had an answer. The veteran Blue Devils knew their best chance to win was to put the Eagles on the line and count on a miss here or there. BC, however, did not oblige, sinking a sublime 20 of 21 free throws, including a perfect 10-of-10 shooting night from Carolyn Swords.

 Miraculously, Mickel Picco sank a pair from the free-throw line with three seconds left to go up by four and seal the victory. Pandemonium ensued, yet it was limited to the 2,673 in attendance – and only really included the hundred or so with a passionate connection to the women's basketball team.

When they had to make baskets, the Eagles did. Clearly, there is a reason Duke entered the game as the sixth-best team in the nation and undefeated in the ACC, and it had nothing to do with having a player with quite possibly the coolest name in college basketball (Karima Christmas – come on, how can that not earn you some brownie points in the AP poll?). The Blue Devils grind out close wins with their fundamental style of play and ability to press the opposing team into making mistakes. That's been their game for years, and those have been the reasons that BC was previously unable to take down Duke since joining the conference.

That finally changed Thursday night. The Eagles finally conquered their Everest, captured their unicorn, courted their Summer Finn. The team finally bought into head coach Sylvia Crawley's idea of possessing that killer instinct, something they lacked when they fell to last-place Clemson two games earlier. It was a coming-of-age tale that the late JD Salinger would have been proud to write.

All that was missing was a flood of students rushing the court to join the team in celebration.