So, BC basketball lost lost two in a row to local non-power conference teams. Oh no! The sky is falling! The levees are breaking! It’s a catastrophe! Give me Al Skinner’s head on a platter!
To quote everyone’s second favorite senile ESPN college football commentator, “Not so fast my friend!”
I’m all about rationalizing and placing blame and a lot of times that falls on the coach (if you can’t blame the refs that is). Hell, a small goal of mine as a sports journalist is to instigate a coach getting fired, it just seems like fun. This is not the time. The seemingly bi-weekly Skinner witch-hunt is in full swing at this moment, but I’m having none of it.
Why am I staunchly defending Skinner just a few weeks after being maybe the only basketball fan at BC to defend his “tight flex offense?” Is it because I like him as a person?
Not exactly, every press conference I’ve been to with Al has been mostly bland with a few comments about the refs thrown in that have the media relations’ guy running to change his pants. Even so, I don’t feel Frank Spaziani is a great head football coach, and he was awesome to interview. Is it because I enjoy joking about Al and his assistant Bonzie Colson and the “Al Skinner Mirror Face” from his Eastern Clothing commercial? Ok yes, yes it is, but that’s not the only reason. So what is it you might ask?1. We Beat Bryant!
Last season they were the Rhode Island based team to send large droves of fans up the commuter rail and out on the B-Line. BC won by 19. This year URI forced me to leave Conte Forum early for literally the first time ever. I've sat through all kinds of John Oates and Shamari Spears led disasters, but this was ugly. Well this year Bryant brought the sign of hope for the Eagles, more in the big ol' zero in the win column than anything else. And you know what? This year BC whooped dem Bulldgos by 26 and Al did something that you would never expect, he shook things up. To the bench went Josh Southern, he of 44 consecutive starts and Koy Detmer memorial beard, and in came sophomore Reggie Jackson. Yeah it's Bryant, but it worked! Corey Raji and Joe Trapani ran the floor and stretched the D where Southern would trail and take his perfunctory 2-3 elbow jumpers per game. BC outdid the Bulldogs by 19 on the boards and Southern still got 14 minutes. Lighting a fire under the best true big man on the roster while putting the most effective lineup on the floor? Never a bad idea.
2. We are Undefeated Against Power Conference Teams
As in no losses, zero. Three wins including over ACC foe Miami, effectively putting BC in a tie for the ACC lead with Florida State. I mean 1-0 vs Big 10, 1-0 vs Big East, 1-0 in the ACC is nice but how bout that 0-2 vs the A10, 0-1 vs the MVC and 1-1 vs the might Ivy League? Not as big as you'd think. Northern Iowa is the second rated team (Behind undefeated Missouri State) in a top 10 conference in the Missouri Valley. St. Joes and Rhode Island are both in the conference rated by the computer of the mighty Jeff Sagarin as the sixth best conference in College Basketball. You may be thinking, "Wait, aren't there six power or BCS conferences?" You are right, and the Atlantic 10 is actually BETTER than one of them and Rhode Island is
3rd in that conference and one of the countries top 40 teams according to Sagarin. And that pesky Harvard team? How bout the 50th best team in the country and they have one of the best point guards in the country in Jeremy Lin. How could we ever rationalize loses without you J-Sags?3. We Did This Last Year
Actually it might have been worse. And that team made the tournament. They lost to Harvard when they were a year younger and without much of athleticism. Then they lost to Saint Louis, letting the Billikens take them down by the Big 10 scoreline of 53-50 in one of the ugliest games ever seen. This year the Crimson had more athleticism and Jeremy Lin ran train on Bico Paris, not a proud moment but even if you put that in the category of shouldn't have happened the losses weren't that bad. St. Joe's shot nearly 50% from the field and from deep and Northern Iowa shot 65%/55% and had Kwadzo Ahelegbe go nutty. When someone named Kwadzo goes 14-17 from the field for 32 points, you aren't winning that game. URI didn't miss on their first 6 threes and it wasn't all BC's poor closeouts, they were just on. Last year Harvard jumpstarted a 4 game losing streak for the Eagles. Then, they went on to win 6 of 8, including taking down Duke at Conte in the defining basketball moment of my time on the Heights. With the exception of walk-on Peter Rehnquist and new recruit Brady Heslip, who enrolled early, the entire team has been through these struggles. Rakim Sanders will knock the rust off, hopefully by the start of ACC play, and this team will be just fine. Yeah, these losses hurt the resume, but they aren't dead yet and South Carolina still comes to town for another chance for a resume victory.
Start making threes and free throws. Get the perimeter D shored up. Figure out a more effective way to break the press then having your point guard post up 90 feet from the hoop. Do this and maybe I'll stay on your side Al, unless you lose to Maine or NJIT, then we can pretend this never happened. Sound like a plan?
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