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UNC Carries the Hopes of the ACC

After the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, the only team left representing the ACC is North Carolina. Boston College, Maryland, and Virginia all had chances to advance while Virginia Tech seemed overmatched against a tough Southern Illinois defense. Had the ball bounced a little differently in a few cases, two or three ACC teams could be moving on. However, it's now down to the Tar Heels who are playing as well as any of the remaining teams in the tournament.

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Boston College Tops Texas Tech, 84-75

by David

You could rename this game, "Dude? Where's my defense?" I don't care what Dick Enberg said ( I know, who does?), there was basically no effective defense played by either team in this game. Once I say the tempo of the game at the start of the 2nd half, I was sure BC would win.

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NCAA First Round Preview: Boston College (#7) vs. Texas Tech (#10)

Our preview for this game.

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ACC Receives 7 NCAA Tournament Bids

By Michael

We would have posted some comments on the brackets earlier, but the server was down for several hours. Of all days for that to happen...

North Carolina wins a share of the regular season conference title and wins the ACC Tournament outright...and what is their reward? Possible games against Marquette, Texas, and Gerogetown in the toughest regional bracket. Thanks, but don't do us any more favors.

That and other thoughts in this post.

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UNC Advances to ACC Tournament Championship

By Michael

Except for a brief run in the second half, Boston College never really posed a threat to Carolina. The Tar Heels controlled the boards on both ends of the floor and sailed to an easy 71-56 win.

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NC State....The Shots are Falling....79-71 over UVa

During the season, TRR was noted two things about UVa: (1) The guards are better than anyone else's and (2) their lack of post play will kill them in the post season. On Friday, the Wolfpack trio of Grant, Costner, and McCauley combined to score 54 points against the UVa frontline in a game where NC State shot an effective field goal of 62%.

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Tobacco Road Report All-ACC Awards V

In this article we present our final TRR All-ACC Awards. Some of these awards are quite unconventional, including the TRR Coach with Brass Award, the TRR Shut-up Dickie V. Award, and the TRR Jason Vorhees Award for the team that comes back from the dead. That and much more is just a click away.

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Tobacco Road Report All-ACC Awards

We've finished passing around the ballots for the 1st Annual Tobacco Road Report All-ACC Awards. Today we present our results for the TRR All-ACC Team selections and TRR Player of the Year in the ACC. Congratulations to the winners.

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BC Rallies in 2nd Half to Down Tigers

by David

You know coming into this game someone had to win. Neither BC nor Clemson has been dominant down the stretch, to put it nicely, and both teams needed a win to right the ship and solidify playoff hopes. Clemson came out hard in the first half but lost their intensity in the second half and BC took control.

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Virginia Tech Stomps Eagles

by David

BC came out flat in their first road game after a disappointing homestand last week against Duke and UNC. Va. Tech reinserted themselves as a force to be reckoned with in the last weeks of the ACC season.

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UNC Wins at BC's Game

by David

There is something to be said for individual effort. There were certainly some standout performances from the game. Tyler Hansbrough (17 point, 7 rebounds) and Jared Dudley (22 points, 3 rebounds) came through for their teams. Dudley will more likely be remembered for missing three free throws down the stretch. The key though comes down to this: UNC is a great team playing like one and BC is still looking for that prime time win that announces them as one of the elite of college basketball.

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The Williams Factor

By Michael

We'll have more on the BC-UNC game in a later post. Until then we wanted to show some interesting tempo-free stats for the Eagles.

When BC lost Sean Williams to disciplinary actions, the conventional wisdom said that Williams' shot blocking and defense were impossible to replace. Consequently, BC would suffer in the ACC standings.

Ignoring the conventional wisdom, BC went out and continued win in conference play. That is, until recently when BC took on Duke and North Carolina at home. The absence of Williams became large as both the Blue Devils and Tar Heels were able to get open looks and multiple attempts on the offensive end.

In the chart below, we plot the offensive and defensive efficiency for Boston College. Click on the link to open the chart. The undulating blue line shows the points per possession scored by the Eagles and the linear solid blue line is the trendline. The undulating orange line is the points per possession allowed by the Eagles and the linear solid orange line is the trend. The last game Williams played was against Miami and we note this game on the chart with an asterisk.

View image

Offensively speaking, the loss of Williams has had almost no impact. The trendline on offense has been consistent at around 1.10 points per possession. However, it's clear to see that Williams has affected the defense of the Eagles. Before losing Williams, BC only allowed more than one point per possession once. After losing Williams, the Eagles have only held the opponent under one point per possession once.

The latter part of the schedule has been tougher, but it's hard to argue against this trend. Bottom line is that the offense is working, but the defense isn't scaring anyone. Al Skinner has to correct this or the Eagles will be going home early in both the ACC Conference and NCAA Tournaments.

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Duke Undresses Boston College 78-70

By Michael

If you told Al Skinner that his Eagles would shoot an EFG% of 60 percent, score 1.03 points per possession, go to the line 28 times and make 22, and shoot 6-13 from three, I would think that he'd be happy to take that against Duke.

Unfortunately, his Eagles gave up an EFG% of 63 percent, only rebounded 61 percent of their opportunities, and turned the ball over 19 times in a 68 possession game. In case you're keeping score at home, that's a turnover on 28 percent of possessions.

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ACC Men's Basketball Players of the Week for Feb 12

Boston College's Jared Dudley was named the ACC Player of the Week while Georgia Tech's Javaris Crittenton and North Carolina's Brandan Wright shared ACC Rookie of the Week honors. Read more here.

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BC 68, FSU 67: Gritty, Great Game for Both Teams

by David

So five minutes into the second half my five-year old son informs me that he is rooting for Florida St. While I pondered the fate of his inheritance, BC and FSU played a great game. With every layup he cheered and I added something else to the two-year old's inheritance list. It had everything you wanted: drama, a BC comeback to take the lead, then a run by FSU to reclaim it, and last second shots. Finally, a local boy hits a shot to beat his area college team. They make movies about this kind of thing. (In fact, I hear Disney may be prepared to sue BC and Florida State for copyright violation.)

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What? There was another ACC game last night?

by David

Actually there were two, but we know what you were watching last night so let's not even pretend. And if it was not UNC-Duke it was probably the US-Mexico soccer match. On the ACC undercard for the night BC came up big with a seven point win at Miami. While it was not a dominating performance, BC made it clear they are still a factor in the ACC stretch run.

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Dudley, BC Serve Notice: We're Not Done Yet

By David

It is really cold where I live today, but it warms my heart to see BC go ballistic on Va. Tech. Jared Dudley (30 points, 11 rebounds) was on fire from the field. He was 11 for 15 overall from the field and 4 for 5 from three point land. It was 19 - 14 in favor of BC with about 8:30 gone in the first half, and then the rout began.

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Duke Wins: Grinds Out 14-Point Win Over BC

by David

Duke seems to be hitting their stride at the right time. Despite some sloppy play at times the Devils pulled away in the opening moments of the second half to close out BC and make sure there would be no clock issue for this game. To be entirely honest, once Duke got up by about 10 points the game got somewhat boring with BC unable to get closer than six but Duke unable to pull much further away.

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Duke and Boston College Earn Top Honors In NCAA Graduation Rates

A reader of the Tobacco Road Report, who also happens to be a colleague of the Official Wife of TRR, passed along a tidbit of information yesterday concerning student-athlete graduation rates that had so far eluded our radar screen. With apologies for the delay, we at TRR would like to extend our congratulations to the student-athletes at Duke and Boston College for earning the top graduation rates in all of Division I.

Duke finished first on the list, graduating 91 percent of its student athletes, only slightly ahead of Boston College who finished second with 90 percent. The data is from the 2006 NCAA Graduation Rates Report and is based on the most recent graduating class for which six years of information is available. The NCAA press release can be found here.

We thought this might be a good time to remind readers of the site that these two schools generally do things right, despite recent "incidents" that have attracted media attention. We at TRR would also like to point out that the majority of the student-athlets that comprise these graduation rates -- those in the so-called non-revenue sports -- quietly pursue their disciplines without fanfare. TRR salutes your efforts.

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BC Grinds It Out, Beats FSU at the Buzzer

By David

Al Skinner is a model of composure on the sidelines at all times, and clearly his team is taking notice. Sean Marshall (22 points, 10 rebounds) drained a three-pointer at the buzzer to give BC the 85-82 win over visiting Florida State.

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Clemson Stomps BC: BCing You in the Post-Season?

By David

In the midst of preparing for hari kari this week, I paused and decided to believe in Al Skinner's ability to maintain BC's winning ways. If this game was to be an answer questions about how the Eagles will play without Sean Williams, and whether they will be dancing in March, the answer is not to the liking of the Chestnut Hill faithful. Clemson really controlled the inside and shot the lights out from outside for the 74-54 victory.

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Williams Burns Boston College Again

For the third time in his career with the Eagles, Sean Williams has violated team policies. This time, however, Williams won't be receiving another chance. He was dismissed from the team today, along with Akida McLain.

The loss of Williams will significantly hurt the chances of the Eagles, who had dashed out to a first place lead in conference and were looking tough to beat with their improved inside-outside play as of late. Williams' presence on the defensive end, cleaning the glass and blocking numerous shots, will be impossible to replace.

We at TRR are disappointed, but not surprised at the event. Unfortunately, the rest of the Eagles will also pay a price from the poor decisions of a single individual. Basketball, after all, is a team game. Sean Williams would be smart to remember that in the future.

The dismissal will likely hurt his NBA draft stock, but not eliminate it entirely. Someone will take a chance on Williams, but his days as an Eagle are over for now.

Update: BC has suspended Williams twice before this most recent indicent, not once as we originally indicated above.

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BC 82, Miami 63: Marshall Plan in Action

By David

BC has their own Marshall Plan: Sean Marshall. He had another 20 point performance as the Eagles coasted to their 19 point victory over Miami. The other nod goes to Tyrese Rice, who had 16 points and 12 assists. Thank god this wasn’t at Miami or the announcers might have been going nuts, “You can’t come in here and do that. They’re lucky I’m not down there.” I can’t believe that I am missing ACC football.

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BC 74, NC State 58: Marshall Goes Ballistic

By David

My buddies at TRR told me to expect an Eagle’s beatdown, but I was skeptical. Can you blame me? They were right though and BC (10-4 overall, 2-0 ACC) righted the ship a bit and got an early road win in the ACC season, always a good thing.

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BC 101, Sacred Heart 68: Sacred Heart Brings a Knife to a Gun Fight

By David

The Northern branch of TRR tried three times to write this up, unsuccessfully. I am not sure what, if anything, was gained from this by BC. The game was out of hand by halftime with BC up 60 to 30, so it amounted to little more than a vigorous scrimmage really. Maybe that was best given the Kansas game later this week.

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Boston College 73, Maryland 62

BC’s theme this year might be lulling teams to sleep with the flex offense. Seriously, teams might look at the scoreboard at some point and say, “What? We’re losing?”

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Boston College 75, Fairfield 52

By David

Alright, I am having my first issue with Al Skinner this year. Jared Dudley (20 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists) paced BC to a win over Fairfield last night but played 38 minutes. The final margin of victory was 23 points. This one was not in doubt. Let’s not make it a nail biter by seeing if a key player gets hurt. TRR shudders to think of BC’s chances if Dudley were to sustain any type of injury. The ACC opener against Maryland is this weekend. C’mon! These minutes add up, and sure it may not be a burden for that game, but in the dog days of February and March these minutes will matter.

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Boston College 84, UMass 73

By David

Boston College continues to move in the right direction, following up there victory over Michigan State in the ACC-Big 10 Challenge with an 84-73 win over in-state rival UMass. The Eagles took the lead for good with around 12:30 left in the first half and never really looked back. A halftime lead of 12 points extended to over 20 with minutes left in the second half before closing out as an 11-point eagle win.

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Boston College 65, Michigan State 58: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

By David

Jared Dudley logged 39 minutes and registered a double-double (30 points, 10 rebounds) as Boston College edged out Michigan State 65-58 in a game which could be best described as workmanlike (really a polite way of saying ugly at times). BC shot under 40 percent from the field (ugly), committed 13 turnovers (ugly), and shot 4 for 16 from behind the three point line (yikes). Given that line I am surprised they won this game, but then you realize that State was not much better on any category and on a few were worse: 16 turnovers, 2 of 15 from three point land. Ugly, ugly, ugly, and…well, ugly.

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ACC Lands Four in AP Preseason Top 25.

The Associated Press Top 25 basketball poll for week 1 of the upcoming college basketball season contains four ACC schools. North Carolina is ranked second, behind the Florida Gators who received 63 first place votes and one spot ahead of the Kansas Jayhawks. The Tar Heels received 9 first place votes while Kansas did not receive any.

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TRR’s Projected Order of Finish in the ACC.

1. NORTH CAROLINA. Roy Williams and company simply have too much firepower. The key will be getting the youth up to speed. Ellington, Wright, and Lawson surrounding ACC MVP Hansbrough will be too much for opponents to handle.

Postseason destination: NCAA final four or better.

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Pre-Season Preview: Boston College: Avoiding the Sophomore Slump

Location: Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
Division: Atlantic
2005-2006 Results: 28-8 Overall, 11-5 Conference
Head Coach: Al Skinner
Record at BC: 175-108 (.618), 9 seasons
Record Overall: 313-234 (.572), 18 seasons

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