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

DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - JANUARY 11: Tre Jones #3 of the Duke Blue Devils drives against Torry Johnson #11 of the Wake Forest Demon Deacons during the first half of their game at Cameron Indoor Stadium on January 11, 2020 in Durham, North Carolina. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images) /

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NEW YORK, NY – MARCH 06: The Boston College Eagles bench (Photo by Abbie Parr/Getty Images) /

More BC if you Please

This is not the most stellar season the Boston College Eagles have had. They sit at 5-6 in the ACC and 11-11 overall. That being said this isn’t the worst season they’ve ever had either and they’ve managed to pull off some wins that they weren’t expected to.

This season BC stands for By Committee. Jairus Hamilton came in averaging over 16 in his last three games. He had five. His brother Jared, scored 18 after going for six and four in his previous two after missing some games before that.

There are eight players that average 16.2 minutes per game. Seven of those players average between 6.1 and 12.8 points with Thornton leading the way in this category as well as assists. There are six players who average between 1.1 and 3.6 dimes a ball game.

Not to leave rebounding out of the loop, six players grab between 3 and 5 boards a game while Steffon Mitchell is the outlier corralling 8.3. He is also the BC glue guy; swiping the ball 2.3 times, dishing the rock 2.8, and swatting the pumpkin 1 time a contest. I think I used all the synonyms for basketball I could think of although you are free to let me know which ones I inevitably missed.

In truth, this should be a pretty certain victory for Duke even though it’s on the road and anything can happen, especially this year in college basketball. The Eagles lost by 39 points the first go-round in Durham and there was little to nothing positive to take from the beatdown.

If BC is going to pull the upset, everything will need to go as right as possible. They will need increased contributions across the board and cannot have the fifteen turnovers they escaped with at Chapel Hill. They will need to hit threes early and often to stay close or Duke will likely steamroll them again as BC has no real “guy” that can get a bucket regardless of score and situation.

They are undersized against the probable ACC player of the week in Vernon Carey and it will take a revenge game of the ages for Thornton to pull the rare double of beating both Duke and UNC in the same season.

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