BLACKSBURG – Hitting the road for the first time in over 10 days, the Virginia Tech men's basketball team will play at Boston College Saturday at 2 p.m. ET at Conte Forum.
The Hokies (14-5, 5-3 ACC) will go up against the Eagles (9-10, 3-5), with both being teams coming off tightly-contested, one-possession games this past Wednesday.
Tech is down in the all-time series to BC 18-13, but has won the last five games in a row, with three of those being in Chestnut Hill. The last time these two teams faced off, the Hokies had a big second half and went on to win 77-66 in Blacksburg.
Tech coach Mike Young is 0-1 all-time against Jim Christian. The two faced each other when Young was at Wofford and Christian was at Ohio on Nov. 18, 2012, with Christian's Bobcats winning handily, 73-50, in Athens, Ohio. Both Young and Christian have the same exact number of career wins with 313.
The matchup will be broadcast on ESPNU, with Jay Alter (play-by-play) and Dalen Cuff (analyst) on the call, while Jon Laaser (play-by-play) and Mike Burnop (analyst) will broadcast on Virginia Tech Sports Properties.
GAME INFORMATION
Sat. | 2 p.m. ET at Boston College | Stats | Watch | Radio | Notes
The last time out, Tech, playing in its first overtime game of the season, came away with a slim, two-point victory at home over North Carolina (8-10, 1-6) Wednesday. The Hokies had three players in double figures and held the Tar Heels to just two second-chance points and zero fastbreak points.
Barely committing turnovers and sharing the rock has been a staple so far for the Hokies, as they rank second nationally in assist-turnover ratio with a 1.67 average. Tech, which holds its opponents to shooting 40.2 percent a game (fifth in the ACC), plays sound defense and commits just 13.4 fouls per game, ranking fifth nationally.
SCOUTING BOSTON COLLEGE
• The Eagles are coming off a heartbreaking two-point loss at Pitt (13-6, 4-4) this past Wednesday, despite having four players in double figures. BC was down 10 points with four minutes left and tied it up after a Derryck Thornton layup with 12 seconds remaining, but Pitt's Ryan Murphy hit a jumper with four seconds left to win it 74-72.
• Jim Christian enters his sixth season as the head coach in Chestnut Hill, following a two-year stint as head coach at Ohio and six years before that as the head guy at Kent State, racking up the best winning percentage in MAC history (.700). With BC, Christian developed one of the better scorers in the ACC in recent memory in Ky Bowman.
• Boston College is paced by Steffon Mitchell, who is second in the ACC in offensive rebounds per game with 3.22, and Thornton, who owns a team-high 12.8 points and team-best 3.59 assists per game.
• The top two things the Eagles do in the national rankings are commit very few fouls, averaging just 15.6 per game to rank 56th nationally, and swipe quite a few steals, owning 8.7 steals a game to rank 27th and third in the ACC.
