Duke Basketball: Keys and storylines for road matchup at Boston College

A look at Boston College’s season

The Eagles have had an up and down season in every sense of the words.  They started the year at 4-1 and then proceeded to lose four straight.  BC then reeled off four wins in a row and after splitting a pair, promptly lost another four games to punctuate that point.

Coming into North Carolina on another win/loss back and forth at 2-1, I quite frankly didn’t know what to expect.  Normally this would be a BC bloodletting in most cases but things are far from normal in Chapel Hill these days.

Cole Anthony returned and forced his will onto the game for good and bad.  He was rusty and pushing to start, but put in work in the second half of his gutsy comeback to the tune of 26-pts 5-reb 3-ast 2-stl to only one turnover.  He went to the line a whopping 14 times and hit every single one of them.  He hit some big shots down ten in the second half that got him rolling and UNC back in it.

The Heels came into the game with some steam on a two-game win streak behind strong inside play and the breakout performances of Garrison Brooks:  3rd in points at 18.7, 3rd in field goals at 54.5%, and 2nd in rebounds and offensive rebounds at 10.1 and 3.9 during ACC play.

Brooks had his worst game in conference play as he and Anthony were not on the same page and only connected once the entire contest for an assist and score.  The Eagles for their part came out hot and stayed there until things evened up midway through the second half.

Jared Hamilton hit 3-5 three-pointers in the first half and finished with 18.  None were bigger than the two free throws he hit with 17 seconds left after being fouled on a three in a controversial call for Tar Heel fans.  The two shots put them up at the final score of 71-70.

Jay Heath also had a big first half and finished with 12 points and six assists.  Their hot starts counteracted the ten turnovers BC had in the half.  They held their own on the boards overall and while UNC had 16 offensive rebounds, they failed to convert many of those opportunities.

The Eagles shot well at 46.4% and 39% from three on seven makes but it was a former Duke player that made the difference down the stretch.  Derryck Thornton has had a long and winding road to finally bring him back to where it started, on the Tobacco one in ACC country.  He seemed to channel the inner disdain toward the Heels shared by all members of the Brotherhood, big and small or past and present I should say.

After a terrible first half, he hit a number of big shots and dished out all his assists under ten minutes to go, going 7-8 from the line in the game and providing the leadership that was expected as a graduate transfer.

I don’t know if Coach K will give him any love for the effort, but Thornton definitely wants a repeat performance and more in this rematch with the Devils.