After Duke I still had optimism about the season. I think that's gone. BC blew a halftime lead. BC blew a 10 point lead in the final three minutes. BC blew a five point lead with a minute left in OT. It was painful throughout. There is plenty of blame to go around.
In general I don't like to give coaches a pass when things go bad, but in this case I am giving Christian some leeway. The issues tonight were so familiar and preceded his time at BC. This is a bad roster and a bad mix of players. He's made some improvements and hopefully will have things clicking later in the season, but this was brutal. Here are some other thoughts:
-- Heckmann! I hope this loss used up his goodwill and any confidence Christian had with him. The mental errors and sloppy play are too painful to watch any more.
-- Brown needs to drive more and shoot fewer 3s. It will be better for everyone.
-- Hanlan's shots weren't falling but he was the least of our problems. I liked him finding Owens cutting to the hoop.
-- Clifford is moving better. Now we just need him to stop making Donahue plays (bad D and bad passing). Just have him stay close to the basket. The further he gets away from the hoop, the less effective he is.
I don't know enough about Christian to know how he will adjust or how the players will react. I want them to be better but who knows what they can really be.
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Pathetic loss. Just a lack of athleticism that hurt us offensively - we cannot make layups under any kind of pressure. Too many easy shots under or close to the basket being missed. Too many acrobatic layups being taken when they should be using their height or leaping ability to take it to the rim or kiss the glass. Can't be too harsh on Christian - he does not have the horses. Its also tougher to recruit with such a lousy record. We just need to catch a break on the recruiting trail.
3 consecutive possessions with a minute to go and the lead - missed front end of 1 and 1, turnover, turnover. bad turnovers too, just terrible passes. gonna be a long year in the ACC.
It was only 10 years ago that we were in the midst of a 20-0 start and #3 ranking in the country. Might as well have been a century ago -- this program has fallen so far that I don't even recognize it anymore. The talent level is equivalent to a team that would finish 5-9 in the Ivy League. Troy Bell, Craig Smith, and Jared Dudley (not to mention Skinner) probably shudder at the sight of what this program has become. Hanlan is the only player on the current team that would have even sniffed the floor on any of those teams -- and even then he'd come off the bench like a Jermaine Watson. I can't wait until waste product like Heckmann and Clifford are gone. I guess the only positive is that, as Skinner proved with Bell, Smith, and Dudley, it only takes a few recruiting coups to turn a program around.
We're way behind in perimeter shooting and athleticism, which means we can't score from outside and we can't get close enough to score from inside. Hard to win without one or the other.
Magarity needs to put on 30 pounds of muscle to be of any use at all. Heckmann continues to be as confused today as he was his first season. Not sure why the kid with the hyphen got a uniform.
Christian deserves the time to recruit his own players.
The last 3 min of regualtion with a 10 point lead.
0 made shots
1 attempted shot
2 offensive rebounds given up
4 turnovers given up
2 fouls made leading to 4 pts
3 Pitt layups allowed.
3:04 Dennis Clifford made Dunk. Assisted by Aaron Brown (43-53)
2:41 Pitt Layup. (45-53)
2:01 Aaron Brown missed Layup/Pitt Block
2:00 BC Timeout
1:59 Oivier Hanlan Turnover.
1:59 Foul on Aaron Brown.
1:59 Pitt mads Free Throw. (45-53)
1:28 Olivier Hanlan missed Free Throw. (47-53)
1:06 Pitt Offensive Rebound.
0:57 Pitt made Layup. (49-53)
0:57 BC Timeout
0:54 Dennis Clifford Turnover.
0:45 Pitt Offensive Rebound.
0:42 Foul on Patrick Heckmann.
0:42 Pitt makes Free Throws. (51-53)
0:34 Aaron Brown Turnover.
0:31 Pitt made Layup. (53-53)
0:25 BC Timeout
0:02 Patrick Heckmann missed Layup.
blows lead in OT. Loses
This team has NO:
- edge
- toughness
- fight
Jared Dudley, Tyrese Rice, Sean Williams, Craig Smith, Louis Hinnant, Sean Marshall...
Hell, maybe even Teddy Dunlap...
Would all send this team running and crying to their Mama's... and all they'd have to do is step in the locker room, never mind onto the court or meet them in the paint 1 on 1.
Jim Christian's comments before the season about how he wouldn't watch any game film of his team infuriated me. Wouldn't he want to know that they stink under pressure and that Hanlan is the worst offender as far as missing open Js, layups, and free throws so that maybe these things can be emphasized more in practice?
That would have been the one thing to learn.
Unlike football, I don't watch much Bball in general. Admittedly, I am pretty much a fair weather fan when it comes to hoops. Yet I made myself sit through that horror show last night. It doesn't take a seasoned analyst to appreciate how bad BC basketball is. Pitt looked BAD, but we looked worse. That game had a high school feel to it. Sloppy play. Ugly shots. Bad passes. Looks of confusion.
Just awful.
Even when leading it looked to be more a byproduct of crappy Pitt play than good BC play.
This might say more about me than it does about the team, but I just don't know if I'll be able stomach many more games this season.
no onions, need to find guys who have em
I don't follow b'ball as much as football and haven't kept up with recruiting. Please tell me that we have at least a few guys with a modicum of talent coming in. Please.
There is never any reason to call our school's student athletes names or refer to them in such insulting fashion: "waste product".
I was as disappointed as anyone after 50 years of watching BC basketball to know what would happen as the team lost its leads and the game.
What we can agree on: there is no lack of effort. The kids were trying. No one was dogging it. No one was hogging it.
Coach Christian has come up with a tougher and more intense defensive effort from the players.
The problems on the offensive side relate to a lack of physical talent; but that has always been the case. For many years BC enjoyed taking players who had been over looked.
Those offensive problems also relate to a lack of confidence. Yes, its a psychological factor. If you think something bad is going to happen, you unconsciously make it so....the self-fulfilling prophecy is alive and well every time BC basketball blows a lead.
It doesn't help for "adults" to show up on a message board and disparage our own kids. It plays into the prophecy meme.
Finally, the hyphenated Carney kid has shown effort and energy and played defense and rebounded to the best of his ability. We can't ask any more from him. I'm glad Coach Christian is willing to try other player combinations based on effort and hard work.
Lenny
Well said. The group collectively could use a good sports shrink.
In sunnier news, #1 ranked BC women's hockey just beat #4 BU to improve to 18-0-1 on the season.
The team is bad. They will be bad for many more years. Nice legacy Steve Donahue.
Unknown
You have to include Gene D as an equal part of that legacy.
Hoib -- very good point. Firing Skinner was the worst move Gene made (among many). People argue that things had gotten a bit stale in Skinner's last few years, and in some ways they had, but in his second last year they beat #1 UNC, #6 Duke, made the tournament, etc. Personally I loved the tight flex offense and 7 tournament appearances in 9 seasons is nothing to sneeze at. Basketball sucess is harder than football sucess at BC I would argue and Skinner had his own way of doing things that produced some great results. I understand he didn't engage with the broader school community and all that jazz, but if that were the biggest problem that BC basketball had at the moment we'd all take that in a heartbeat.
WI Eagle
No one loves Al more than me, and I think he is the gold standard in BC Hoops coaching, but he never had to face a situation like Christian does. This league is just incredibly difficult. Basically the best of the Big East minus Uconn has been added to the ACC. It would be kind of like taking the 3 of the 4 best hoop teams from the Big 12 and adding it to the Big 10 hoops. We might never be an upper half team in this league, or make the NCAA tourney for a long time. In other words Skinner's curse could be in place for a while.
The other thing about this game. It looked like Conte was more than half empty. The camera shots that picked up the stands behind the baskets showed completely empty seats. Just a terrible overall impression to anyone watching.
Bates needs to waive all charges for students to see any basketball game - womens or mens - if he has not done so already. And he has to keep that in place until each program is soundly on its feet again.
Then Bates needs to ride herd at least on a weekly basis with both programs to intimately understand our recruiting progress. He has to keep the pressure on and facilitate and remove any obstacles. He has to get his head wrapped around the recruiting situation - because that is the only thing that can restore these programs. This doesn't mean he interferes - it means he focuses, gets the resources and is fully engaged in fixing the programs. It also sends a signal to the staff that the school is hugely serious about fixing the problem and expects results not excuses.
Its nothing short of disgraceful for BC to have allowed two highly visible programs like this to fall into such a state of disrepair. Its more than a mere coaching failure - its an organizational failure on the part of the Athletics Department.
Nappy
Only 2200 @ the game. That's 25%. We have real problems.
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