This was a black-and-white game. There was no different perspective from one partisan side to another. Pitt just put a complete hurt on the Eagles. BC was outplayed, dominated and humiliated. BC’s team leader knew what happened.
Craig Smith, who led Boston College with 22 points, said his team was intimidated by the Panthers, who have won six consecutive games against Boston College and 10 of 11.
“They came into our house and bullied us,” Smith said. “They basically showed every other team out there that the way you can beat us is to be physical. We’re not going to be intimidated the next time we play them. We’re not going to be the same team.”
He does realize that there is not a member of that BC team that has beaten Pitt? How embarrassing to be ranked as th #5 team and be intimidated at home, on Senior Night, in front of a sell-out… and Doug Flutie was on drums.
The Pitt players, though, are feeling real good at the moment.
“That was us tonight, the real Pittsburgh team — physical and tough,” said junior point guard Carl Krauser, who had 10 points, seven assists and seven rebounds. “I could jump through the roof right now. I’m ready. Everybody’s ready.”
While Pitt was celebrating this must-win, first-place Boston College (23-3, 12-3) was trying to figure out what went wrong, considering it lost for the first time in 17 home games and got destroyed on the boards, 49-27, and outscored in the paint, 40-18.
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“This was basically do or die for us,” sophomore center Chris Taft said.
That might explain why the Panthers were virtually unstoppable in the second half. They outscored the Eagles, 44-25, putting a cap on a tumultuous two weeks that saw them lose to Villanova, West Virginia and Connecticut, the latter two defeats occurring at home.
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Pitt held Boston College (which shot 31.1 percent from the field) without a field goal for 10 minutes in the first half and forged a 20-12 lead after a flying follow-up dunk by DeGroat.
“Felt real good,” he said.
The Panthers hung onto a 28-25 lead at the half before opening things up. Graves hit all three of his 3-pointers in the final half, Taft threw down two monster dunks, DeGroat followed three off-the mark shots with easy layups, and, before BC knew it, the game was out of hand.
Does Pitt plan to play this way the rest of the year?
“We have no choice, otherwise we’ll be watching the games on TV,” Krauser said.
The game pretty much puts Pitt in the NCAA Tourney. Now it’s just a matter of climbing up in seedings.
In Chestnut Hill, once is a fluke and twice is a disturbing trend.
Boston College might want to think about canceling future senior sports festivities.
The school’s two darkest athletic moments this academic year have been the Senior Day football blowout loss to Syracuse that cost Eagles a BCS berth, and last night’s basketball debacle against Pittsburgh on Senior Night.
“It’s funny about Senior Night sometimes,” BC coach Al Skinner said. “Sometimes it works for you, and sometimes it works against you. You want so badly to do well for your teammates.”
Maybe before their BE Tournament game, Mike Tranghese can come out and honor BC for being a founding member of the Big East?
BC Coach Al Skinner wasn’t spinning this.
Standing in the hallway outside of his team’s locker room after last night’s game, Boston College coach Al Skinner was asked if he liked anything about what he had just seen.
“No. There’s nothing,” Skinner said after his fifth-ranked Eagles were pushed around by Pittsburgh in a 72-50 Senior Night blowout. “Every guy that’s on their roster that played for them – there was nobody we defended.
“We were dominated. It’s just that plain and simple. They dominated us.”
Jared Dudley who couldn’t do much on offense also felt honest.
“They just had it easy tonight,” said BC’s Jared Dudley, who had season lows of four points and three rebounds and shot 1-for-8 in 36 minutes against a body-up, man-to-man defense. “We didn’t come ready to play. We didn’t match their intensity. They had more at stake than we did, and they played like it. They were physical with us. They pushed us around, and we really didn’t respond to it.”
You know, it bears repeating how Pitt has snapped the two longest home win streaks for BC, and how much Pitt has owned BC.
Playing for its postseason survival, Pittsburgh arrived in Conte Forum with a three-game losing streak but put a sobering smackdown on the Eagles, 72-50, before a sellout crowd of 8,606. The Panthers, playing a familiar spoiler role, pinned BC (23-3, 12-3) with its third loss of the season and first at home, snapping a 19-game home winning streak. Pittsburgh, which snapped BC’s 25-game home winning streak in 2001, extended its mastery over the Eagles to six consecutive wins and 10 in the last 11 meetings.
Dudley seems to think there is something about Pitt.
What is it about Pittsburgh? “They just seem to have our number,” said BC sophomore forward Jared Dudley, who was held to a season-low 4 points in the 72-50 loss to the Panthers. BC suffered its sixth straight loss to Pittsburgh, and 10th in the last 11 meetings. BC’s only victory in that stretch came in the championship game of the 2001 Big East tournament.
Nice to know how far Pitt is in their heads. Pitt could very easily be seeing BC in the semi-finals of the BE Tournament.
