Boston College players heard the skeptics, many of them on campus.
Leaving the Big East last year for the Atlantic Coast Conference appeared to be a wise move for BC’s football program, but how could the Eagles hope to compete in basketball?
“Yeah, people were saying we couldn’t play with ACC teams,” said star forward Craig Smith, a 6-foot-7 senior. “Ever since I got here, people have doubted our team. We’ve had a big chip on our shoulders with everybody always doubting us.”
Flexing a punishing style of play, Boston College (28-7) overcame an 0-3 start in its ACC debut to finish third in the regular season, then reached the championship game of the ACC Tournament before losing to Duke 78-76.
Using the momentum of a strong finish, the Eagles defeated Pacific and Montana in the opening rounds of the NCAA Tournament last weekend to advance to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1994. The No. 4 seeded Eagles will play a former Big East foe, No. 1 seed Villanova (27-4), on Friday in Minneapolis.
“The experience of playing in the ACC has helped us,” Boston College coach Al Skinner said. “It did a lot for our guys’ confidence.”
Smith is the team leader, averaging 17.7 points and 9.3 rebounds en route to first-team all-ACC honors. Junior forward Jared Dudley (16.7, 6.7) was voted to the second team.
Smith, Dudley and 6-6 junior guard Sean Marshall, all from California, bought Skinner’s sales pitch to come East. None was a typical blue-chip recruit that top ACC teams usually rely on.
At Los Angeles’ Fairfax High School, Smith tipped the scales at 30 pounds more than his current weight, 250 pounds. Skinner was the only coach from a power conference to come calling.
“I’d never been to Boston,” Smith said. “And I stayed in my room for a couple of days when there was a big snow. But I got used to it. And I got to play ball at the highest level.”
Dudley, a 6-7, 225-pounder from San Diego, was even more lightly regarded than Smith. His name wasn’t on any national top-300 recruiting lists.
“Dudley is an acquired taste,” Skinner said with a smile. “He doesn’t do anything great. But he does everything really well.”
Skinner has developed a keen eye for spotting talent, and it grew out of necessity. Boston-area high school coaches still harbor hard feelings against Boston College stemming from 1996, when several local top-tier recruits were rejected by the school’s admissions department after giving oral commitments to then-Boston College coach Jim O’Brien.
With a roster of players from nine states – with no in-state players – and having competed against the Big East and ACC, there’s not much that will catch the Eagles by surprise.
“West Coast basketball is a little more finesse; East Coast basketball is more grind it out,” Smith said. “And in the ACC, they want to get out on the break. We’ve seen about every style there is. That’s what you face in the (NCAA) Tournament.”
