FSU basketball: Boston College preview

Boston College was set to play Miami on ESPN's Sunday Night basketball, but the game was pushed back to Monday afternoon due to weather. Then, with BC facing a quick turnaround flight to Tallahassee, the game went into double overtime. Boston College had a chance to win at the end of the first OT, but senior Patrick Heckmann pulled the string on a layup and left it on the front of the rim. Miami won in the next OT.

Boston College - like Florida State - has a thin roster, and their three workhorses played 43, 47, and 49 minutes against the Canes.

Florida State will need to push tempo and play physical defense, which will hopefully pay off in the final ten minutes of tonight's game when FSU should be fresher than BC.

The loss against Miami left the Eagles at just 1-11 in conference play (though they picked up solid wins over New Mexico, Providence, and Harvard out of conference. Providence, you may recall, beat FSU by 26). This certainly isn't the start first year head coach Jim Christian envisioned, although - to be fair - outgoing coach Steve Donahue didn't exactly leave him a roster stacked with talent.

Junior point guard Olivier Hanlan and senior Patrick Heckmann were the two guys from the previous staff that really have starter-quality high-major talent. Hanlan is a high-volume Canadian point guard who is tough to stay in front of (sound familiar?). Even with Aaron Thomas guarding him last year, Hanlan still finished with 20 points and four assists. Now, he's averaged 27 points over the past four games, and is scoring 18.1 on the season.

Heckmann is BC's third leading scoring at 8.5 a game.

To complement those two, Christian landed transfer Aaron Brown.  Brown was a sharpshooter at his two previous stops (Temple and Southern Miss), but is only making 33% from the arc this year. He can score in bunches, though, and is averaging 14.8 per game.

BC's main problem has been their terrible defense. They are 14th in conference play, foul way too often, and don't have much strength on the interior. Boston College will likely double everything inside to give Dennis Clifford and Will Magarity help, and try to force FSU to beat them over the top. In other words, it's pretty much the same recipe FSU faces every game.

The game tips at 9pm and will be broadcast on the ACC Network and ESPN3. The Noles are 6.5 point favorites.