BC (finally) wins at Clemson

It was the Olivier Hanlan show tonight.  After BC played an uninspired first half, Hanlan took control of the offense in the second.  In the middle of the second half Hanlan was our offense, and BC scored seemingly at will possession after possession while Clemson went stone cold.  BC went up by 9 with under 5-minutes left, but things got scary as turnovers let Clemson back in the game.  Clemson was within 3 late, but Hanlan shown brightest and hit a clutch jumper with under a minute left with the shot clock winding down to open the lead up to 5.  And thanks to some Hanlan FT shooting from there on out, that was all the cushion the team needed to come out of Clemson with a win 68-61.

This is BC's:

• 2nd road conference win (the first being the opening conference game @VT)
• First time winning back-to-back conference games this season
• 5th win in the last 8 games
• 1st win at Littlejohn (!!!)

Hopefully the team can keep this momentum going when they close out ACC play at Conte vs. GT on Saturday.


Likes
-- Hanlan taking control of the offense - He was quiet through the first, but midway through the 2nd Hanlan put the offense on his shoulders with consistent confident drives to the hoop.  And then he mixed in a deep 3 to keep the Clemson defense honest.  Hanlan carried the offense through the middle of the 2nd through the end of the game.  After scoring only 3 points in first half, Hanlan scored a whopping 21 in the 2nd and lead all scorers with 24 points.  He had a phenomenal game.
-- Taking the ball to the hoop - The first half was filled with a lot of timid perimeter play littered with bad perimeter shots.  In the 2nd, we started driving to the rim, and good things happened.  It wasn't just Hanlan who did it.  Rahon and Anderson also had success driving to the hoop in the 2nd, and their play contributed to the run that put BC up for good in the 2nd half.

-- Heckmann moving without the ball - Heckmann showed a little bit of how to run that modified Princeton offense tonight.  He had a few cuts to the undefended hoop for easy layups in the first half.  It really seems as if he's starting to figure out how to be an asset in this offense.

Dislikes
-- Breaking the press - We were holding a 9-point lead late in the 2nd half.  But the game started looking like the Penn State game down the stretch.  BC got sloppy breaking the press and turned the ball over too many times.  We also pressed on offense.  Before you knew it, the 9-point lead was whittled down to 3 with 90 seconds left in the game, and we needed that Hanlan jumper to stop the bleeding.
-- Not converting easy opportunities - When you play on the road, you need to take advantage of every high scoring chance presented to you.  As a team we missed way too many shots right under the rim, especially in the first half.  Another example of missed easy opportunities - the team has been shooting well from the line in the last few weeks, but tonight that wasn't the case for anyone not named Olivier Hanlan.  Take out Hanlan's FT shooting, and we were a very pedestrian 7-13 from the line.  The bottom line is that we left way too many easy points on the floor.
-- First half from beyond the arc - We threw up way too many poor threes in the first half.  Heckmann from NBA range, Rahon rushing a shot out of the beginning of an offensive set, Jackson from the top of the key without his feet set, Van Nest from the wing, Jackson again from 3-feet behind the line at the beginning of the set.  As a team we were 2-10 from beyond the arc in the first half.  A lot of those misses were simply due to poor decisions being made.
-- Bigs shooting from the perimeter - This is a little nit-picky since we did win the game.....but here it goes anyway - yes, Van Nest hit one long range jumper in the first.  And yes, this offense is supposed to be built around the supposition that anyone can hit a shot, but these bigs just aren't connecting right now.  Anderson missed two from the top of the key.  Odio and Van Nest both missed 3s.  It's painful to watch these guys shoot and miss extended jumpers....especially while BC is trying to put together a run (e.g. -  Odio's three point attempt in the middle of our big 2nd half run).