Or at least serves as a masking agent.

Shortly after halftime, the nasty bug that has been running through the household finally hit me. Overall, February has truly, deeply, unequivocally sucked.

It’s been years since Pitt and BC faced off in basketball, but it’s nice to know somethings just don’t change. Things like the local media barely noticing them to the point where the Boston Globe just used an AP wire story rather than having a beat reporter.

Something else that hasn’t changed, Pitt notching a win in Chestnut Hill. The last time Pitt lost a game at Boston College, Ralph Willard was coaching the team.

Not that Pitt didn’t seemingly try to give the game away at points. The turnovers were mind-boggling because the overwhelming majority didn’t appear to come from much beyond carelessness and brainfarts. BC isn’t good, but 17 turnovers will help any team stay in the game.

The second half gave some shades of Maryland, and gave BC Coach — sorry, let me try again. And gave embattled BC Coach Steve Donohue a chance to decry missed opportunities.

“We are damn close and that’s the frustrating part for me,” BC coach Steve Donahue said. “We don’t understand exactly how to win day in and day out, and I’m hoping it comes. I’m trying to tweak it, doing everything I can with every ounce of my energy and I think we are close. I’m trying to inspire them to believe in everything that I’m saying and we’ll get there.”

Not with him leading them he won’t. There is no support for keeping Donahue in the ever increasingly apathetic BC fanbase.

As for Pitt, if you know Coach Jamie Dixon is not going to complain about a win after the last three games. Hell, let’s play it up a bit.

“A great win for us on the road against a team that just beat the No. 1 team in the country,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said of Boston College, which handed then-No. 1 Syracuse its first loss last week. “I’m very proud of how we passed, how we played and how we shot it.”

After the FSU game where Coach Dixon focused on the shot selection as a key issue in the struggles to score, he was pleased with last night.

Pitt was 23 of 46 (50 percent) from the field and outrebounded the Eagles, 33-18.

It was Pitt’s best shooting performance in the past eight games — the Panthers were 2-5 in their previous seven before Wednesday night — and Dixon said that was a result of them taking good shots.

“It really was shot selection,” Dixon said. “If you aren’t shooting well it is usually shot selection. I thought we did a better job against Florida State last game early and took good shots but didn’t do it the whole game.

“This game it continued throughout the entire game.

“It comes and goes and this is hopefully a continuation of what we did early in the season and the start of better offensive performances.”

On the other side, BC has some nice guards — offensively. Defensively and every other spot on the floor. Not too much to offer. Pitt did do a very good job with their gameplan in making it hard for BC to find space to take 3s. It wasn’t so much that BC shot below their season average from outside (obviously it helped). It was that they did not find the space to take the 3s in the first place. A team that averaged 22.6 three-point attempts per game was limited to only 16. Even a team as reliant on the 3-ball like BC won’t take as many if the defense is playing so tight on the perimeter that the shots would be much lower percentage shots.

The consequence was giving up a lot of drives to the basket and more than a few fouls. But that strategy worked out well last night against a team that can’t win without a lot of 3s.

After seemingly weeks of teams focused on smothering Lamar Patterson, he must have found it refreshing to be left wide open early in the game to hit shots. Talib Zanna was aggressive inside and converting at the free throw line. Cam Wright may have had one of his most efficient offensive games. Going 6-9 with 14 points.

Outside of those three, though, Pitt wasn’t too spectacular. Derrick Randall actually looked good in limited minutes until he got hurt on the arm or shoulder. Not sure what his status is.

Mike Young is doing his damnedest at the moment to disprove the the theory that Coach Dixon won’t play/will pull freshmen from the floor for mistakes and and poor play. Even though his playing time was well below his season average (21.6), he still starts and got 16 minutes. His minutes appear tied to his rebounding (UNC was an exception, because of foul issues). Despite Pitt pounding BC on the boards, Young only grabbed 2 rebounds last night. In four of his last five games he has had 2 rebounds or less. I am attributing it to his offensive funk affecting the rest of his game (a common freshman problem), but I’m open to other theories.