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Sporting News, The, March 4, 2005 by Mike DeCourcy

There are 10 seconds left in the basketball game, Notre Dame is ahead by five, and everybody in this building knows what is coming. Except those guys, the ones wearing uniforms the color of a nice cabernet. Their heads are held high. They are speaking calmly with each other, trying to figure a way out of this impossible situation, like the CIA spies on Alias. There is no hint of surrender among the Boston College Eagles.

This does them no good, of course--at least not here. Time is too short, and the Irish lead is too large. Suddenly, Notre Dame students overrun the court, no one really stopping to consider this is Boston College their team just vanquished. Really, now. The Eagles might win the Big East title, might earn a No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed and might even reach the Final Four, but nothing could be more unlikely than this team getting the Duke treatment.

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It might be the most sincere acclaim they've received this season, though the season nearly has been perfect. The Eagles won their first 20 games and stayed unbeaten longer than any team except Illinois, but they generally were dismissed as the product of an accommodating schedule or ignored in the hope they eventually would lose a few games and drift back into the morass of the RPI standings.

"We've been in the gutter," says small forward Jared Dudley, one of the Eagles' best players.

"Every week, people have been saying we were going to get knocked off, things like that," says point guard Louis Hinnant.

This year's excellence is relatively new. The Eagles were successful last year, fifth in the Big East Conference and a No. 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament. But they lost 10 times. At this team's present rate, it would have to play into the next decade to lose that many games.

The feeling of exclusion, though, is familiar. That is what defines Boston College basketball. None of its players was a McDonald's All-American. Most weren't considered elite prospects. BC coach Al Skinner and his assistants saw something in each of them. The players were honored--and affirmed--to be coveted by someone in the Big East.

"Everybody on this team was underrecruited. When you have people that the same thing has happened to them, it's an automatic click," says star forward Craig Smith, locking his fingers together to illustrate his point. "I think just the fact that we shared the same things, it clicked faster, so it only took a year after we'd been together for us to pretty much make a statement."

Smith has a quick response for most questions. He has grown from the pudgy forward who was not much more than a caddy for prep superstar Evan Burns at Los Angeles' Fairfax High into a powerful, punishing All-American candidate. He's thinking about this one, though. This is tough.

When is the last time Skinner yelled at him? Suddenly, Smith remembers. It was a December game against Boston University, and Smith struggled early on defense. "I figured it out at the end, but he got on me in the locker room afterward," Smith says. "When you hear him, you just listen. It's like, 'He's right.' Another coach, he'd be yelling all the time. What else is new?"

Skinner's relaxed style directly correlates to his players' measured approach during games, which facilitated comebacks from second half deficits in 14 of BC's first 22 victories. One of the few Division I coaches who played in the NBA, Skinner rarely draws attention to

himself on the sideline and does not call timeout at every sign of trouble. During part of the Eagles' practice the day before they played Notre Dame, he was seated on the scorer's table, observing.

"He doesn't have to have a chokehold on every possession," says ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla, who coached against Skinner in the Big East. "The team's like that. You don't even know they're there, until they beat you."

The Eagles are not without talent. They just haven't won many big recruiting fights. Associate head coach Bill Coen has been with Skinner 16 years; assistants Ed Cooley and Pat Duquette have been with Skinner for nearly a decade. They've earned a reputation for ignoring recruiting analysts and following their own instincts. "Coach Skinner is open to any possibility," Coen says. "A lot of times in recruiting, there's so much group-think on whether a kid can play, or what level. You kind of box yourself in."

Many others saw Smith as overweight, ineffective and volatile on the floor. Smith admits they were right. Then. "In high school, I was kind of immature. If things didn't go my way, I'd get easily frustrated," he says. "Now, knowing what I need to do on the court made me a more calm person. Things aren't always going to go your way. But I know how to take a different tone."

Smith grew up a lot in one prep school year at Worcester Academy. As a junior, he has scored in double figures in every game but one--not coincidentally, the loss to Notre Dame. His inside scoring is an ideal complement for Dudley's versatility. A decent long-range shooter, Dudley is most dangerous attacking with the dribble and pulling up for midrange jumpers. BC runs a tight flex offense designed to put its players in position to score easily. "The coaches don't really ask players to do things that aren't to your strengths," Hinnant says.

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Sporting News, The, March 4, 2005 by Mike DeCourcy

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