Conversely, the Eagles are coming off one of their most lopsided victories of the season, as they defeated Hartford 94-60 on Wednesday. To be honest, if Vin Baker appeared out of Doc Brown’s DeLorean in the Conte Forum parking lot and came into the gym to play for his alma mater, I think BC still would’ve won by 25 points. The question for BC is, did this win help them to get some of their mojo back?

      Only one thing is for sure. At about 3 o’clock on Saturday one of these team is going to be in 2^nd place in the ACC, and the loser will move down to 4^th.

Virginia Tech Leaders

PPG Dowdell 18.2

REB Washington  5.2

AST Gordon  4.4

FT% Dowdell 82.3

BLK Collins/Diakite 1.1

STL Gordon  2.5

Boston College Leaders

PPG Dudley  18.9

REB Dudley   8.7   

AST Rice   6.1  

FT% Dudley   7.6

BLK Blair   1.7 

STL Dudley   1.5

Why Virginia Tech Will Win (Virginia Tech’s Strengths/ BC’s weaknesses):

      For the past few weeks I’ve had VT pegged as a possible sleeper team to make a run pretty deep into the NCAA Tournament. After watching the success of the Hokies during that time, I think it’s safe to say you can’t call this team a sleeper anymore. In fact, it wouldn’t be crazy to say that this team even has a decent chance of winning the ACC regular season title. How exactly is VT having so much success? Well in my mind they have the perfect storm brewing;

1) Two fantastic guards- Zabian Dowdell and Jamon Gordon are as good as any guard duo in the country. More about them later…

2) Solid Big man down low who can score and defend- Coleman Collins (8.5 ppg) hasn’t putting up the scoring and rebounding stats throughout this season like he did last year, but that’s because he doesn’t have to. The Hokies are relying less on Collins to score every night, which is turning into a good thing. The VT center has raised his FG% by almost 4% from last year while taking far fewer shots.

3) Versatile forward who can defend and chip in with points- At 6’ 7” Deron Washington can guard a quick shooting guard or small forward, or bang down low with a bigger body. In addition, he’s also good for about 10 points a night.

4) Three point assassin off the bench- A.D. Vassallo provides instant outside shooting off the bench as he is 3^rd on the team in scoring. Vassallo ranks in the Top 10 in the ACC for 3-PT shots made per game, but even more impressive is that he makes his treys at an alarming 54%.

5) Duo of power forwards who can bang the glass- Lewis Witcher and Cheick Diakite combine for about 6 rpg and almost 2 bpg.

Why Boston College Will Win (BC’s strengths/Virginia Tech’s weaknesses): Granted NC State caught VT on an off night last Wednesday, but there was still something valuable that could be taken from that game. The Wolfpack used various different defensive looks (man-to-man, zone, triangle-and-2) on the Hokies, and on more than a few occasions it threw VT totally out of rhythm. NC State’s defense caused the super VT backcourt duo of Dowdell and Gordon to shoot a pitiful combined 8-of-25 from the floor. In fact, VT as a team shot a season low 35% from the field.

      Can BC do something similar to slow down the Hokies? Well, I don’t think that the Eagles can be as successful as NC State defensively, mostly because I can’t see Al Skinner being as innovative as Sidney Lowe with different defensive schemes. However, I think the Eagles can keep Dowdell or Gordon off the board in a little bit different fashion: by getting them in foul trouble. Gordon in particular is very aggressive defensively, and in-turn picks up quite a few fouls. Gordon actually leads VT averaging over 3 fouls per game. If Rice can drive to the hoop like he was doing against FSU, he’s either going to score or get fouled on his way to the bucket.

      The lesson here is, do whatever you can do to keep Dowdell and Gordon in check in the points column.

Match up to watch: Tyrese Rice and Sean Marshall vs. Zabian Dowdell and Jamon Gordon: With the loss of Sean Williams and Akida McLain, combined with the improved play from Tyrese Rice and Sean Marshall, BC has gone from a team that’s strength was their forwards to a team that’s strength is their backcourt. Rice and Marshall have moved themselves into a Top 3 guard duo in the ACC. The only problem is that Dowdell and Gordon are a notch better than Rice and Marshall.

      Dowdell is the leading scorer for the Hokies, and is in the Top 5 in ppg in the ACC. The senior guard can score by driving to the hoop, or he can step out and bury a trey if need be.

      Gordon is more of a “Mr. Everything” type of guard, as he can score, or dish out assists. The only offensive flaw Gordon has is that he’s a pretty mediocre 3-PT shooter.

      However, the most impressive feature of these two guards is how great they are defensively. Gordon (2.5 spg) and Dowdell (2.36 spg) are ranked 1^st and 2^nd in the ACC in spg. This doesn’t bode well for BC.

Final Analysis: There’s a good reason that the Hokies were sitting in 1^st place in the ACC until a few nights ago. There isn’t really a big weakness to any part of their game. As a whole, VT does everything pretty well, as they are ranked in the top half of the conference in most categories. The one thing that the Hokies do extraordinarily well is create turnovers. VT has an average of +5.27 in turnover margin per game. What does this mean for BC? If you watched the Eagles play Duke a week ago you certainly know what it means. Expect VT to bring even more stifling defensive pressure than Duke did and in turn be even more successful at making the BC players make bad decisions. Look for the Hokies to win by 8-10 points.

Next up for BC: 02/07 vs. Miami (9-13, 2-6): The ‘Canes are on a 5 game slide where they’ve lost by an average of over 21 ppg. The Eagles gave Miami a whitewashing last time they met, but BC has lost some of its “help” since then. This game is a must win for BC to keep their NCAA Tournament hopes alive.