Boston College at Miami

Of course I'll be previewing my own schools weekend game, as I'm sure Nittany Nation will do sometime early next week as his Nittany Lions travel to Ohio State in a game that is HUGE for their chance to dance.

I enjoy looking at the game from the students perspectives. Here's the game-story from the BC paper, The Heights. The Miami Hurricane, their student paper doesn't seem to have a game story, or anything at all on the win at BC. I'll just chalk it up to the fact they were on break, if I find anything I'll put it up.

Boston College (19-8, 7-5 ACC) at Miami (Fla.) (15-10, 4-8 ACC)

Why I'm Watching: Because I go to BC is the obvious reason, but there are other reasons to tune to NESN or RSN if you can. The first is because you HATE mid-majors and would rather watch two unranked ACC teams than Butler/Davidson. Other than that it would be the first chance to watch BC play since their upset of Duke and go in with a chance to avenge their early season home loss to the Hurricanes. Also you get a chance to watch two of the ACC's best senior scorers in Tyrese Rice and Jack McClinton. McClinton, before a snoozer against Florida State with 13 points, scorched the nets against the ACC's elite to go for more than 30 in three straight games against Wake Forest, Duke and UNC.

What to Look for: Beyond the scoring of McClinton Miami offers very little. Dwayne Collins provides a very strong inside presence for the 'Canes and last month in Conte grabbed 5 offensive boards and got to the line 14 times. 14! Even Jeff Allen, who was seeming ALWAYS at the line for VaTech at BC had less attempts that, albeit he had 13. Good news for BC is that Joe Trapani has hopefully gotten himself back on track with the Duke game. With Collins a little banged up as well all BC needs is some contribution from Southern and Dunn, their two big men, and they should be better. The Eagles actually won the rebounding battle last time around but Tyrese Rice led them with 8, and that is a rare anaomaly that doesn't accurately reflect how they did on the board. Rice and freshman Reggie Jackson managed to shut down McClinton very nicely but the sharpshooting of Adrian Thomas and inability to get inside on the other end forced BC into 27 threes, the same number of free throws they took. Rice actually accounted for 12 shots from behind the arc, only connecting on 3. At the same time he only got the the line 8 times, something he gernally does very well of his penetration.

What I Expect to See: BC should go inside early and often with Collins banged up. The other big man of note for Miami is really Jimmy Graham, but he shouldn't cause to many issues for the Eagles has offensively he is just a grabage man and is decently foul prone on D. If Josh Southern can get himself on track at all and do better than his 5 point average the Eagles should be set. Look for Corey Raji, one of the sneakiest rebounders on the offensive glass to take advantage of the slowed down Collins and have a nice game of putbacks. Also look for Rakim Sanders to have his usual big first half impact scoring down low on smaller guards and taking bigger players outside. He also has the ability to shut down McClinton. If he doesn't bring it on both ends he could be looking at the bench, especially after Reggie Jackson's performance against Duke. It comes down to the ability of Miami's role players to contribute to keep the 'Canes in it. Last game they had 5 players, including Collins and McClinton in double figures. They've played tough lately but enough close loses and you start to get deflated. The Eagles will come in destined to not let their early season slide after the UNC win come back again and will take the week off they had to be prepared for this game. Miami's bubble may already be burst but to have a chance they certainly need this game so they'll play tough again, but how much their recent run has taken out of them remains to be seen.

Prediction: Boston College 80, Miami 73