A look at BC, again

NCAA Basketball Stats

Rank and Records	BC		NCST
RPI	#49		#102
Strength of Schedule	#45		#74
Overall	20-9		15-12
Conference	8-6		5-9
Home	14-4		13-4
Away	5-4		2-8
Top 25	3-4		1-6
RPI Top 50	4-6		2-8

It's Senior Night tonight at the RBC, and round two of the "Man, we better win at least ONE of these final home games" homestand.

Once again the Pack faces off against a team that leans heavily on its point guard for production, though BC -- moreso than Maryland -- can turn to others to pick up the slack when needed.

(Continues)

Sophomores Joe Trapani and Rakim Sanders are the second and third-leading scorers for the Eagles, chipping in 14.1 and 12.3 points per game to augment Tyrese Rice's team-leading 17.5. Trapani leads the team in defensive rebounds and Sanders is tied with Rice for the top number of steals.

Make no mistake about it, though: This is Rice's team. As he goes, so do the Eagles. That he leads the team in points per game and dishes out over five assists per game is indication enough that the offense of BC flows through Rice, point blank.

As Steven pointed out earlier this week, the Eagles are an offensive rebounding monster, second-best in the ACC and one of the best in the country. Keep an eye on BC's Corey Raji and the Pack's ability to keep him off the offensive glass. If Raji wins too many battles on the Eagle's boards, it could be bad news for State.

For the Pack, tonight not only means the final game of Ben McCauley and Courtney Fells' (and possibly Brandon Costner's) careers, it's also the last good look the team will have at halting a skid that could possibly derail and nullify the modicum of progress the team seemed to be making to close out the year. A loss tonight would be the third in a row, with a road date with a good but inconsistent Miami team to finish the year.

Win both these games and that mojo can be regained heading into the ACC tournament. Lose both, and it won't be pretty.

State is a two-point favorite at home, but as they say the home team gets three points, Vegas feels like this one is a pick-em with a slight edge to the Eagles.

McCauley, Fells and Costner have a golden opportunity to conclude their careers at the RBC Center on a high note. It will be critical that they come out and play to their potential.

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ACCSports.com interview with John Feinstein, story about V

ACCSports.com is doing a two-part One On One interview with author John Feinstein.

In part one, Feinstein relays, among other things, his memories about Jim Valvano and about the times spent hanging out with him in his office 'til the wee hours of the morning:

ACCSports.com:
You’ve told this story before. Valvano wins the national championship in 1983, and he’s still a young, exuberant man in the prime of his career. You two are sitting in his office at 2 a.m. eating pizza, and he’s essentially telling you that he’d already achieved everything he’d ever dreamed of and didn’t know where to go next, right?

Feinstein:
Right. “What am I going to do when I grow up?”

I used to go to Jim’s office after home games, and he would order in pizza because he could never sleep after a game. Jim would order pizza, open up a bottle of wine, and start telling stories. I would just hang out until everybody else left, because I wanted the one-on-one time. That’s when he would get serious.

Jim was as bright as anybody I’ve ever met in any walk of life. I mean that — any walk of life. I remember one time, it was 1988, and he was reading Gorbachev’s book, “Perestroika,” and he told me, “The Soviet Union is gone within three years.” And he was right. It was gone two years and six months later.

He would stretch out on his couch and he would say, “OK, now you’re going to be my psychiatrist for a while.” And he said, “I’ve done basketball. I dreamed of winning a national championship. I won one at 37. Now what do I do?” I don’t want to say he was tormented by that, but he was pulled in so many directions because he was always looking for the next thing.

I always thought the tragedy of his life was that he didn’t find the next thing until cancer found him. That’s when he found his next thing, and it was the remarkable work he did during the last year of his life, setting up the V Foundation.

View the complete entry of "ACCSports.com interview with John Feinstein, story about V"

Search continues for Corey Smith, three other boaters off Florida coast

The Coast Guard continue to search for former Wolfpack football player Corey Smith and the rest of his boating crew that went missing late Saturday night off the coast of Clearwater, Florida.

Smith, along with Oakland Raider Marquis Cooper and former USF football players Nick Schuyler and William Bleakley, were reported as missing at sea on Sunday. They were out in the Gulf of Mexico in a 21-foot vessel when harsh weather led to extremely rough seas. It's thought that the waves reached heights in excess of nine feet.

The latest on the story can be found here at cnn.com. I'll try to post updates as I can:

- As of 1:30, the Coast Guard appears to have found a capsized boat with a man clinging to it. There's speculation on the boards that it is Nick Schuyler.

- 1:35. It is, in fact, Nick Schuyler. He's alive and reasonably well. That they haven't found the other three is troubling, but Schuyler's recovery is good news nonetheless.



- 3:30. According to Schuyler, the boat the four players were on was anchored in the Gulf when it was capsized by a large wave.


- 12:30 Tuesday. Still no word on the other three occupants of the boat. It's tough to remain hopeful at this point, after having been in the water for over 48 hours, of recovering any of the remaining three alive. The temperature of the water, even if the other three were wearing safety suits, is cold enough to have subjected the men to hypothermia by now. Keep sending your prayers.

- 5:00. According to Tampa Bay's Fox affiliate, the search for the remaining three boaters is being suspended at sundown. (H/T The Struttin' Wolf) This all but ends any hope of finding any of the three men alive. The Coast Guard estimates they've searched over 24,000 square miles of open water during the course of over 50 S&R missions.


Obviously, keep sending out your prayers for all four of the players and their families.

View the complete entry of "Search continues for Corey Smith, three other boaters off Florida coast"

Maryland 71, State 60

Stats by StatSheet.com

Stats by StatSheet.com

Ugh.

With a shot at a .500 conference mark and momentum heading into the postseason on the line, the Pack laid an absolute egg at the RBC Center last night.

(Continues)

Greivis Vasquez was unstoppable, scoring 33 points while dishing out another five assists. The Pack didn't have a defensive answer for him, no matter what defensive look they threw at him.

Compounding matters, the Pack played poorly when they had the ball. They made one careless turnover after another and shot the ball poorly from the perimeter (26.3%). Tracy Smith was a beast down low in the first half, but when Maryland went to zone on defense, State's perimeter players were unable to get the ball to him as effectively and resorted to three-point shots.

Brandon Costner and Courtney Fells were non-factors again, offensively. Even worse for Fells, he struggled defensively against Vasquez, and when you aren't playing well offensively and you're not effective as a defensive stopper, it looks doubly bad.

It's amazing how one loss can completely kill the renewed optimism surrounding the program. Just a week ago, State had won three of its last four and some overly optimistic folks were talking of running the table.

Now State has lost three of its last four, and after losing a winnable game at home, it feels like all the air has been sucked out of the room. Five-hundred in the conference is gone, and 7-9 seems like a long shot with a road game against Miami left. And if BC plays to their ability and the Pack duplicates the same effort it gave against the Terps in their game against Eagles, 5-11 could loom as a real possibility.

View the complete entry of "Maryland 71, State 60"

A look at Maryland

Stats by StatSheet.com

Rank and Records	UMD		NCST
RPI	#58		#87
Strength of Schedule	#22		#74
Overall	17-10		15-11
Conference	6-7		5-8
Home	14-3		13-3
Away	1-5		2-8
Top 25	2-6		1-6
RPI Top 50	4-9		2-9

(Continues)

With three ACC games remaining, State has a chance to finish 8-8 and .500 in the league. They could also finish 5-11. Finishing the season on a strong note heading into next season starts tonight against the Terps.

The Terrapins, much like Boston College, FSU and Miami, lean on an outstanding guard for their offense. Greivis Vasquez leads the team in points scored, field goals made and free throws made. But Vasquez provides much more than just offense to the Terps. He also leads the team in rebounding, assists and steals. He does it all, and when he's on his game, the Terrapins are very tough to beat.

Maryland will also turn to junior Landon Milbourne for added production. He's second on the team in scoring, and leads the team in offensive rebounding and blocks.

Where the Terps struggle is shooting the ball. They're 11th in the conference in effective FG percentage at 46.4%, and is one of the weaker teams from the perimeter, shooting only 32%. Compounding matters, they don't get to the line nearly enough. Their FTR% is 325th nationally at 29.3%, but they're in the top 10 in free throw percentage, 76.6%. In short, they're leaving a lot of points on the table by not getting to the line more.

This is a huge game for the Pack. State's favored by four at home, and has played well of late in the confines of the RBC Center. However, there's more riding on this game, and the BC game, than in previous contests. If the Pack can hold serve at home they would secure a 7-9 finish and have a good look at that .500 finish heading into the ACC tourney. Lose tonight, and it may kickstart a swoon that will all but negate the positive momentum the Pack has built over the last few weeks.

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