BC’s Eagles surprise experts
BOSTON – The surprising Boston College Eagles have the nation’s second-best record, their highest ranking since 1983 and a bunch of players the top basketball schools didn’t want.
Just three teams remain unbeaten midway through the season and, somehow, BC is one of them. Excited fans are flocking back to Conte Forum, transforming its quiet expanse of empty seats into a loud arena where they cheer another Boston-area powerhouse.
“First it was the Red Sox, then it was the Patriots and now it’s the Eagles,” said high-scoring forward Jared Dudley.
The Red Sox and Patriots are champions, but it’s much too early to label Boston College a favorite to reach the Final Four. Its homecourt will never be mistaken for Duke’s high-decibel digs filled by the Cameron Crazies or Kansas’ Allen Field House where boisterous crowds empty their lungs.
But the eighth-ranked Eagles have one edge over those schools with much richer basketball traditions.
They’re 16-0, while No. 2 Duke is 15-0 and No. 6 Kansas is 15-1. Top-ranked Illinois (18-0) is the other unbeaten team.
“The Kansases, the Dukes, the Carolinas have been doing it a long time,” Dudley said. “I just want to help build this tradition here.”
The sophomore from San Diego considered going to prep school when no major schools recruited him. Then BC stepped in and he developed into their second-leading scorer. Last Wednesday, he scored 36 points and kept the Eagles unbeaten in a 67-66 win over Villanova. BC scored the last seven points and Dudley made the final four on free throws.
Tight games are common for BC.
It needed two overtimes to beat Yale, one overtime to beat Holy Cross and every second to erase an 18-point lead and beat Kent State 67-65 on Craig Smith’s basket at the buzzer that gave the Eagles their only lead.
“We’re not going to blow people away and we don’t try to,” coach Al Skinner said. “We play at a certain pace that allows us, hopefully, to have a chance to win at the end.”
That’s why he’s wary of all opponents, even St. John’s, whose 7-7 overall record before last Saturday’s game was tied for the worst among Big East teams. The Red Storm lost at home against BC, but Skinner points out that they beat 21st-ranked Pittsburgh on Jan. 18.
“If we don’t recognize that anyone can beat us, I think we’re being foolish,” Skinner said. “We may be a good basketball team, but we’re not that talented.”
The No. 8 ranking is BC’s highest since Dec. 1983 when it was sixth under current Maryland coach Gary Williams. Skinner stepped down as Rhode Island’s coach to take over in 1997 for Jim O’Brien, who left after a dispute with the admissions office that led to four recruits going to other schools.
“If I had doubts, I wouldn’t have taken the job,” Skinner said.
With four walk-ons, his first team went 15-16. After two more losing seasons, BC went 27-5 in 2000-01 and reached the NCAA tournament.
“It really was a credit to the kids who decided to come here and take on the challenge,” Skinner said. “BC was not the place to be.”
It was just the spot for Smith, a junior forward from Los Angeles.
“I wasn’t recruited by USC or UCLA,” he said. “They thought I was chubby, thought I wouldn’t get in the workout room. That was a lot of motivation. I wanted people to regret not taking me.”
The 6-foot-7, 250-pound Smith is a dominant power forward, leading the team with 19.1 points and 8.6 rebounds per game. Last season he was a Big East first-team selection. Dudley is second in both categories with averages of 16 points and seven rebounds.
The only starter who didn’t return was center Uka Agbai, and the Eagles were motivated by their 57-54 loss in the second round of the NCAAs to Georgia Tech, which lost in the championship game. This season, they added shot-blocker Sean Williams.
“At the end of last year we started clicking together and it just continued,” Smith said. “We were basically a bunch of unrecruited players who want to make a statement.”