The Eagles’ loss in Coral Gables to the Miami Hurricanes was not a blowout; rather, it was more like death by a thousand cuts. In a game that saw many, many opportunities for BC to capitalize and play good fundamental basketball, the Eagles came up just short and failed 72-71. The defeat is their first in the ACC, moving their record to 13-5 (3-1).
Reggie Jackson was again the Eagles’ leading scorer with 22, but on the final play of the game, he suffered an ankle injury. The word is that Jackson is putting ice on the ankle and hopes to play against Virginia this upcoming week. That’s the only good news, if you even want to call it that.
The bad news is that BC had a very winnable game and could not get the job done. BC led 60-55 late, with the ball, but the Eagles would turn the ball over on that possession (Miami 3) and the next one (Miami 2 to tie) to give Miami hope. Miami didn’t take advantage of ALL of BC’s mistakes, but they did take advantage of enough of BC’s mistakes to close out the victory, their first in ACC play this year.
The turnovers were sloppy, to the point where it felt like there were far more than just ten. Many of them were simply careless mistakes like passing to the wrong guy and being casual with basketball protection. For their part, Miami had their moments of being lax with ball control as well, but they were able to score points off of those BC turnovers (19), while the Eagles could not cash in (8). Miami was also able to collect more offensive rebounds than BC, which made the difference in this game: they outscored BC 20-15 on second-chance opportunities.
Now we can talk about that no-call at the end of the game involving Reggie Jackson going to the hoop. I may be biased, but it seemed to me as though it wasn’t a clean block and that a foul should have been called. Instead, Miami came down with the ball and so ended any realistic chance BC had of winning. I’m not happy with how that unfolded, and I’m sure many BC fans aren’t, either, but remember, this was also a team that had trouble corralling the basketball tonight, took some ugly shots, and let Miami hit a three at the halftime buzzer (and in case none of you noticed, the clock stopped there at 3.9 seconds for about a second, maybe a hair less — and I replayed it on DVR several times to make sure I wasn’t crazy). We can point fingers at the refs, and in that case rightly so because it wasn’t a good call, but to be fair, BC had many, many opportunities to put points on the board and use Miami mistakes to their advantage, but they did not, hence, we are in the situation we are in now. Still, they played a mediocre game and only lost by a single point. This is no time for so-called “moral victories,” however.
BC’s next game will be at home against Virginia on Wednesday night. The Wahoos were fairly pesky down at Duke today, and even though they’re not very good, I wouldn’t want to see BC facing anyone without Reggie Jackson. For our sake, I hope he plays and, more importantly, is effective.
