Headlines: BC Survives Hawkeyes

Jeff: If you saw the score from last night's basketball game you might be a little concerned that BC only beat Iowa at home by 2 points. If you watched the game you are probably disappointed that BC turned the ball over continuously in the first half to allow Iowa to hold a lead for a significant portion of the half. And all you had to do is look at the box score to be dissapointed that BC only shot 38.8% from the field. There were plenty of other negatives to take from the game but there are also plenty of positives. First and foremost, BC won. Some people are quick to point to the fact that Iowa had a chance to hit 2 free throws at the end of the game to send it to OT, but it is worth pointing out that that free throw miss was Iowa's first miss from the line of the game. If Iowa had sent it to OT, they would have shot a ridiculous 100% for the game. Also, Iowa shot real well from 3 in order to keep themselves in the game where they shot 43%. BC did not play nearly as well as they should have but they did get another win from against a BCS conference school which might turn out to be noteworthy come March. It certainly won't hurt us as a loss might have.

Brian: Well it certainly helped that the kid Raji fouled - freshman Andrew Brommer - is a .200 percentage FT shooter (3 of 15).

Jeff: As for the future of BC basketball, I'm surprised more fans aren't talking about Boston College as a tournament bubble team. I think the people who do not give this team a chance must either never have played basketball or certainly not at a very high level. We are still a very young team and young players make a lot of mistakes. Southern starts for us and didn't even see significant PT until the late part of the season last year. Trapani starts for us and he would be better referred to as a redshirt freshman than a sophomore since his one year of experience did not come at a school which plays in a major conference. Then beyond the starting lineup which features 4 Sophomores, the players coming off the bench are almost exclusively freshmen. I fully expect this team to improve throughout the year and improvement on our 4-12 conference record is a given. How much the team improves from last year's record is still very questionable but getting a bye in the ACC tournament is little stretch, but is certainly a possibility for this program.

Brian: Trapani playing at Vermont shouldn't be a knock on him. Trapani is legit. He has experience playing in the NIT and walked into Conte as a freshman, dropped double digits points on us and beat a BC team with Dudley, Marshall and Rice. He is basically our #2 scoring option at this point and actually plays defense, so I'm not sure you should knock him (if calling him a "redshirt freshman" really is knocking him).

You can see this team getting better, but it will be slow going. While Iowa is a major conference team, they most likely aren't going Dancing either this year. Both teams have upsides, but I would hardly say this was a marquee win.

Jeff: Trapani is legit. You make good points about the big games he played in but in the ACC your 16 regular season games and 1+ ACC tournament games are all big. There is a difference between someone who played a year at Vermont and a year in the ACC. We replaced 3 something points a game John Oates with Trapani this season and meanwhile all of our other players got a year older. There is some serious upside for this team. I feel like people are lumping in Sophomores with upper classmen. This is not the case. Sophomores are still underclassmen and our Sophomores for the most part are still playing like underclassmen.

Brian: Right, but Trapani has more experience playing a full year at Vermont than basically anyone else on the team except for Rice and Sanders. Like you said - Southern didn't play much, neither did Dunn or Roche, Raji is the 6th man, Biko came off the bench and Ravenel, Jackson and Elmore are all true freshmen.

Jeff: All I'm saying is everyone except Rice lacks true experience. Trapani started for a mid major and most of the others Eagles on the roster didn't start or didn't get much PT last year.