Boston College Preview and Game Thread -- 11/23/2023

[440Rambler]

What a comeback! Dawson seems to unlock something for the team, great win!

[goramblers2011]

Fantastic win. Had a hideous stretch in the 2nd half. But the team showed a ton of resiliency in coming back. Dawson is a very talented player.

Momentum! Let's win out the rest of non-con.

[JCT]

Nice to see 2022 era Braden Norris back. 20 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists. And a great close out to the game both offensively and on defense. Rubin is physically able to overcome some lapses, but he's also getting more impressive each game. Tons of poise...

Good, much-need win. A lot of positives.

[ahunte1]

Great to pull that one out down the stretch. Loved the right hand shot from Rubin, especially when we couldn't get much going inside.

Work to do, but better to learn from a win, that's for sure.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

[Ohio Rambler]

Good win! I don’t understand the defensive strategy of switching a guard onto a big. BC recognized it and took advantage, the same thing happened against Creighton. I get switching guard to guard and big to big but asking one of our guards to play a seven-footer will not work. Miles and Tom are athletic enough to hedge those screens. It might be more difficult for Dame but a guard to forward switch in that situation is not a long-term solution.

[01grad]

Good bounce back win. I wasn’t able to watch it, but judging by the box score it looks like the rotation was a bit tighter than it has been. Only 8 players with more than 10 minutes.

[goodknight]

25 minute replay Loyola over BC
Nice to see a win


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeDGtSbKCcI

[Cruyff]

Nice come back by the Ramblers.
• Rubin played against two high-level centers and showed he can compete
• Braden shot really well today
• If Dolan can progress to his mean on his 3-pt shooting, the team will be tricky to guard
• Quinn, better performance, but still turning the ball over
• Dawson, welcome to the lineup. He is gaining confidence and clearly can play
• Watson continues to look like a player. He hit some big shots

[Mudville21]

Some thoughts:

1. Steve Lapis was brutal to listen to today. He clearly did not do his research. Norris historically is a very good 3 pt shooter. He acted like because of a slow start that today was shocking. He was on Dawson early regarding his tough shooting against Creighton when he got hurt and was only playing his game of the season coming off of the injury.

2. Good win. I posted that I was looking for slit in these two games and that we would be competitive. We were competitive for 20 minutes Creighton and for 40 minutes against BC. This was a positive. 3-3 now and easy schedule rest of the way before A10 starts. We should be 9-3 going into the A10 if we keep working and getting better.

3. I made a comment that we did not have a lot of killers on this team. Rubin, Dawson, and Dez are Killers. Rubin with a couple of fantastic moves with the layup going under and coming out the opposite side for a lay up and baby right hand hook was beautiful. He defense when they stopped switching and stuck to Post made it hard on him to score. Dawson can play and is unafraid. We need him to stay healthy, he can ball. Dez has outperformed expectations.

4. Loved the offense today despite the dry stretch in 2nd half. There was flow and guys were ready to catch and shoot. It looked like our shooters were seeking out open space. Case in point in first half Norris was on the elbow, his guy dropped in the lane to help and instead of staying on the elbow he rotated to the top of the key for wide open catch and shoot 3. This has been lacking. Rubin on the baby hook also moved to open space and Post lost him because he kept moving to get open when Post cheated on Norris in the lane. Hopefully when Alston comes back, we will still have this flow and ball movement.


5. It was not all pretty. Broken record time…We still had 16 turnovers. Some were bad TOs and some were because of forcing things on offense. Got to clean that up.

6. Quinn played better tonight. Maybe with Dawson getting healthy he felt the heat to start playing better. He’s a physical guard and today he took advantage of that. Let’s hope he builds on this.

7. Shorter rotation. We knew as we got closer to the A10 it would happen. No minutes for Schweieger and Lewis.

8. Good to see Drew pay attention to the flow of game. He got a lineup that was playing well and he rode it last 3 plus minutes of the game. Dawson and Rubin down the stretch. This is coaching. Let’s hope Drew too is turning the corner.


Let’s stack some wins and get back to playing good consistent basketball.

[Ramblin Ray]

Yes,it was a nice win yesterday,but do all of you realize that we could easily be 1-5 because of the “ last defense decision” in each of our last two wins?I have always been a proponent that if you have a 3 point lead with less than 5 seconds to go,that you foul your opponent and send them to the free throw line.
As we have seen in these last 2 wins,Drew does not have this philosophy.

Okay,if that is not his philosophy,than you have 5 guys defend the 3 point line,and not defend down low.
In the New Orleans game,we lucked out because Mwamba definitely fouled Johnson on the 3 point shot and the refs didn’t call it.In the game yesterday,Rubin was defending underneath and had to jump out at the last second to try and defend the wide open 3 that the BC guy ogot off- a fortunate miss.

If the coaches are going to have this philosophy of not fouling in the last 5 seconds,than by gosh- DEFEND,DEFEND,DEFEND the 3 point line.We lucked out with our last 2 wins.Let’s not let this scenario happen ever again.Just saying!!!!!!!!!!!!