Syracuse puts its undefeated record on the line once again Wednesday night when the Eagles of Boston College head to the Carrier Dome. It was B.C. that kept things tight with Syracuse until the closing minutes back on January 13.
The Orangemen have experienced 5-6 extremely close games since that time, yet they have come away victorious in all of them. They have looked beyond flawed at times and do not appear as the number one overall team in any respected, data-driven ranking system. Yet, they are number one in both the polls and atop the ACC in their very first year within the conference.
Boston College will have its hands full in this one given the fact that they really struggled to keep pace with Syracuse on the glass in the first go around. Boston College, oddly enough, only played Will Magarity and Alex Dragicevich a combined seven minutes off the bench in that game, so it will be interesting to see if Steve Donahue goes to his bench a bit more frequently given their struggles inside.
B.C. was able to keep things close thanks to the steady hand of guards Joe Rahon and Lonnie Jackson. The duo combined to go 9-15 from deep in that ball game. Rahon turned it over five times, but you have to think that seeing this zone once should enable the B.C. guards to be a bit more efficient when it comes to ball movement and turnover efficiency.
Olivier Hanlan did not shoot well in that first game, but he did get to the free throw line 10 times, converting nine of those opportunities. B.C. shot 26 free throws in that game as a team. While they do have stretch ability with their guards, they need to attack the basket with Ryan Anderson and Eddie Odio and at least give themselves chances to force the Syracuse bigs into potential foul trouble.
I had this spread at 14.5 and, altering posting at about 15.5 on a few sites, the number has settled down into our forecasted range. Syracuse has no business overlooking anyone after the scare they received from N.C. State, despite the fact that they do have Duke coming up this weekend.
I tend to like B.C. here given the nature of the match-up and the fact that they are receiving a massive number and do have some shooters to throw at this zone. Still, the Orange have done very well when faced with an opponent for the second time, and i expect them to continue that trend. This game should land somewhere around 15, and playing it at this point is basically like flipping a coin.
