Whether or not we were going to beat Boston College was never in doubt. The only questions were how wide the final margin of victory would be and how well we would play on our way there.
There wasn’t much to talk about from last night, but I’ll think of something.
Malcolm asserted himself as the dominant guard on the floor by scoring 27 points on 10 shots, canning all five of his threes, and throttling BC’s Eli Carter (2-10, seven points, three turnovers). He scored 17 of our 29 first half points. Since being called out by CTB for his shot selection in the wake of his 4-17 performance in Tallahassee, Brogdon has shot 56% (and 54% on threes, 13-24) while scoring at least 20 points in four of the five games. He’s up to number four in Ken Pomeroy’s Player of the Year rankings.
Our interior play was hard to get a handle on. BC is a small-ish, undermanned team with the worst two-point defense in the ACC, but they sagged everyone they could around the lane and dared us to fire away. As a result, we didn’t score our first point in the paint until an AG putback with a minute to go in the first half, made eight of 24 two point shots for the game, and committed 13 turnovers (more than 20% of our possessions. Those open jumpers were a mixed bag: we made nine of 18 threes, but also appeared content to clank 17-footers off of the side of the rim instead of moving the ball around for a better shot. There was a sense of complacency.
Gill took four official shot attempts, as BC kept two or three bodies on him at all times. He kept his double digit scoring streak intact at 25 games with an eight of 10 performance at the line, and posted his first game with double digit rebounds since West Virginia.
The offense was pretty stagnant all night, but Malcolm’s red-hot shooting made it look OK when he was on the floor. The bench guys — especially units without Malcolm that featured four or five bench players, like the ones that let BC finish the game on an 11-0 run — were really bad.
The defense was great. BC made five twos all night and hit 21.7% of them, scoring 0.75 points per possession only because freshman Sammy Barnes-Thompkins got hot from the three point line in the first half.
Perhaps the biggest highlight from last night was Evan Nolte nailing a corner three with 7:23 to play. Everyone in JPJ and watching together on Twitter was rooting for him to break out of his funk, so things got pretty loud when he finally knocked one in. He’d missed 14 straight threes dating back to the GW game.
It’s hard to get a read from the team after a game like this because the talent gap is so wide. I don’t suddenly think I’m Zach Lavine because I can dunk on a Little Tikes hoop. I’m just glad to be past it without any glaring red flags.
A trip to Pitt is up next.
