Boston College Travels to Raleigh, Looks to Tame Wolfpack

The Boston College Eagles will look to salvage their two-game road trip through North Carolina when they visit the North Carolina State Wolfpack on Wednesday night.

BC limps into the game after suffering an 89-68 thrashing at Duke on Sunday.  Unlike the first game those teams played, a 62-61 nail-biter won by the Blue Devils, Duke put this one away early by building up a 24-point lead at the half, 51-27.

The Eagles (12-15, 4-10 ACC) and Wolfpack (19-8, 8-6 ACC) meet for the second time this season.  The two teams opened conference play in Boston back on January 5.  NC State prevailed in a hard-fought 78-73 contest with clutch free-throw shooting by converting its last 15 attempts to hang on against BC.

All five starters for NC State scored in double figures, led by 19 points from Rodney Purvis.  Richard Howell notched a double-double (12 points, 11 boards) and Lorenzo Brown scored 14 points and dished out eight assists.

Four Eagles cracked double figures, highlighted by Ryan Anderson’s huge night.  The sophomore led all scorers with 22 points and cleaned the glass for BC with 13 rebounds.  Guard Joe Rahon had 18 points and was a stellar 8-of-11 from the free-throw line.

While both teams played a clean game the first time around in terms of turnovers ­ (seven each), ­ fouls were another story.

Forty-four total fouls resulted in 72 free throws and a combined 49 makes.  If BC is going to pull the upset, they can’t let NC State make 35 trips to the free-throw line nor can they afford to miss 13 of their own.

The Eagles will also have to do a better job of staying out of foul trouble, especially on the road, as both Lonnie Jackson and Patrick Heckmann fouled out and Olivier Hanlan finished with four.