Next up for Duke is Boston College and while BC is struggling again, the culture of this program is hard work. Earl Grant has not been able to recruit top-shelf talent, but he gets guys who are willing
to play hard and that sometimes lead to surprises.
In their last four games, the Eagles took out Syracuse in overtime 81-73, beat Pitt 65-62, lost to Notre Dame 68-64 and on Saturday pushed Virginia before losing 73-66 and probably losing a lot of gamblers a lot of money.
Currently BC is 9-12 and 2-6 in the ACC.
The backcourt is solid with 6-1 sophomore Fred Payne and 6-5 junior Donald Hand, who are putting up 15.2 and 14.4 points respectively. Payne is averaging 3.8 rebounds and 3.0 assists while Hand is pulling down an impressive 5.1 rebounds and 1.4 apg.
Luka Toews is a 6-1 sophomore who grew up in Tokyo. he’s getting 6.4 ppg, just under 2 rebounds and 2.7 assists.
Boden Kapke is a 6-11/255 lb. junior transfer from Butler. He’s solid with 9.5 points and 5.5 rebounds. He had 19 points against Pitt and 14 against Virginia on Saturday.
Jayden Hastings is a 6-9/240 lb. sophomore who’s getting 6.3 ppg and 5.7 boards. In a recent game (maybe Notre Dame?), he got into with an opponent and had a bit of a running conflict.
He may be a hothead, in other words. Something to keep an eye on.
Raleigh native Chase Forte has bounced around and was at three schools before transferring to BC for this season. Check out what he said about himself on NCSAsports.org: pretty cool stuff.
Also in the rotation: 6-9/210 lb. Aidan Shaw, who spent three years at Mizzou, and Caleb Steger, a 6-5 freshman from Dallas.
Collectively, Boston College does not shoot well, averaging 29.6% from outside and 40.5% overall. Even free throws are not great, with a team average of 65.8%.
And their pace is generally slow, which may not work well against Duke, since the Blue Devils first play at a much faster pace and second defend pretty well.
Then they have to deal with Cameron Boozer, Isaiah Evans, Pat Ngongbo, Caleb Foster, Dame Sarr, Maliq Brown, Nik Khamenia, Cayden Boozer and Darren Harris. We could be wrong, but almost anyone on Duke would likely start for BC. There’s a big gap between these teams.
So is the situation hopeless for the Eagles?
Well, no. No, it’s not.
First, this program is built around effort and we’re pretty sure they’ll play hard. Second, Duke saw Foster and Sarr get sick before the trip to Virginia Tech and there’s no guarantee that whatever that is won’t spread to other players. And third, there’s always the change with UNC straight ahead this Saturday, that Duke could look past BC. And if you do that and this team comes in and grinds, you’ve got a problem.
We’ll add links as we find them.
Go to the DBR Boards to find Blue Healer Auctions | Drop us a line
