For the slightest moment, Boston College big man Mo Jeffers lost control, but that was all it took for things to come apart at the seams for his team.
The Eagles were only down, 54-50, to Virginia Tech with 12:28 left in the second half when Jeffers went to the block and started wrestling for position with the Hokies’ Zach LeDay.
Neither one wanted to give an inch, pushing and shoving to keep ground. Jeffers’s arm flung into LeDay’s face. The glancing blow was enough to earn Jeffers a whistle. The whistle was enough for Jeffers to lose his cool.
Frustration boiling over, Jeffers slammed the ball against the hardwood right in front of referee Ted Valentine, which only compounded his troubles.
Valentine hit him with a technical.
Seth Allen went to the line for the Hokies and knocked down two free throws to extend Tech’s lead to 56-50 and from there, the Eagles couldn’t keep things from snowballing in a 91-75 loss, their 12th in a row. BC fell to 9-20 overall, 2-14 in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The technical foul obviously derailed an Eagles team that can’t afford lapses of any kind, BC coach Jim Christian said, but it wasn’t in Jeffers’s character.
“I’m always concerned about a technical foul,’’ Christian said. “To me it’s a very selfish thing to do — and he’d be the first one to tell you that. Because now, that’s not about a team thing, it’s about you. And he knows that. He feels worse than anybody in that locker room.
“He’s been a guy that has been great all year long. He lost his head at a pivotal time and obviously it hurt. It took all of our momentum away and it gave them momentum. So yeah, I’m upset, he’s upset because it’s not indicative of who he is and who he’s been all year long.’’
What was more alarming for Christian was watching his team give up a staggering 53 points in the second half. The game was tied at 50 with 13:39 left in the second half after BC’s Nik Popovic skied for a two-handed dunk. But from there, the Eagles gave up a 21-6 run, unable to find a stop.
It was the polar opposite of the first half, when the Eagles were able to take a 40-38 lead into the break despite letting Tech shoot 53.8 percent.
The reason, Christian said, is that his players become much different defensively the farther they get from the Eagles’ bench. Without the coaching staff in their ears, they’re somewhat directionless.
This was the third time in the past five games that the Eagles gave up 50 points in the second half (they also gave up 49 to Florida State on Monday and 45 to Notre Dame the week before that).
“When the ownership has to go to the team, the second half on the defensive end of the floor, we’re not doing it,’’ Christian said. “We don’t have any defensive leadership on the floor. We don’t have enough communication and that’s been a problem for about four or five games. They’re running the same stuff, they’re not changing anything. They’re running the same sideline ball screen they ran in the first half.
“They’re throwing the ball diagonal like they did in the first half, but when we’re there, we can get there and close out because we’re up, we’re screaming at them. When they have to rely on one another, you see the blown switches, you see all the same stuff that they know.
“So whether it’s fatigue, whether it’s toughness, whether’s it’s communication — it’s probably a combination of all three — that’s how you lose the game and that’s how we’ve lost four or five games the same exact way.’’
Six players finished with double-digit scoring for the Hokies (20-8, 9-7), led by LeDay, who put up 18 points on 7-of-9 shooting with seven rebounds.
“At the end of the day, I give them credit because those guys were shooting the ball to win.’’
Jerome Robinson led the Eagles with 25 points, knocking down 4 of his 8 threes.
But the issue and the answer for the Eagles both lie in their defense.
“That’s the difference in the game,’’ Christian said. “They’re playing to win and we’re not. We’re not shooting the ball with the confidence to win it and we’re not getting the stops you need to get to win it. It’s as simple as that.
“We’re not playing to win yet. We’re not understanding yet the price you have to play to win in this league. The price isn’t a 30-minute effort. The price is 40 minutes, every possession. Every possession is valuable. We have not done that yet.’’
Julian Benbow can be reached at jbenbow@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @julianbenbow.
