With the way that a broken-play, buzzer-beater against N.C. State on Wednesday snatched away the conference win that Boston College had been chasing in vain all season and punched an already reeling team in the gut, Eagles coach Jim Christian wondered if his team still had vital signs to show in their final regular-season game on Saturday.

“I was worried about it because of what happened the last game,’’ Christian said.

The weight of so many losses in the Atlantic Coast Conference had been piling on the Eagles all season. So did the possibility of it ending in the worst season both in the history of the school and the ACC.

“I’m sure they knew,’’ Christian said. “We didn’t really talk about it. We talked about how to get better.’’

But along with that weight the Eagles were carrying the disappointment of an opportunity lost in North Carolina, and Christian could tell by the way his team dragged that there was nothing left.

So could Clemson.

The two-handed dunk that Clemson’s Landry Nnoko flushed down late in the second half of Clemson’s 66-50 win over BC would’ve been just another bucket in the pile of points the Eagles were buried under if he hadn’t hung on the rim to drag out the insult as much as possible. The technical foul he earned for it didn’t matter.

“Tonight was probably the first game in a while that we didn’t show resiliency,’’ Christian said. “It probably had a lot to do with how we lost the last game.’’

BC already had set the record for the most losses by an ACC team, but their 0-18 conference finish made them the first team since Maryland went 0-14 in 1986-87 to fail to win a conference game.

“Disappointing,’’ Christian said. “How else could you describe it? I talked a lot to our team about it. Not everything can be judged in the results. It’s disappointing in the results.’’

In the final regular-season game of his career, Dennis Clifford posted his third double-double of the season with 14 points and 11 rebounds.

“I don’t know if he’s going to go down as one of the best players that ever played here,’’ Christian said. “But if you lined up all the best players and they witnessed what he did and the way he competed — not only to get on the floor, but to play every possession, come to every practice — the way he finished up his career, not one of them wouldn’t have a tremendous amount of respect for him.’’

Jerome Robinson gave the Eagles a game-high 18 points. But Clemson, led by Jaron Blossomgame (16 points), threw the Eagles in a 38-21 halftime hole and never let them climb out of it.

Boston College’s woebegone basketball season came on the heels of a disastrous football season, in which the Eagles went 3-9 and lost all eight of their ACC games.

The last major conference school to lose all of its football and men’s basketball league games was Texas Christian in 1976-77. Both football coach Jim Shofner and basketball coach Johnny Swaim were fired after the season.

When the Eagles opened spring practice last week, BC football coach Steve Addazio offered his support for Christian and pointed out the similarities between the teams’ circumstances.

“That’s where he is right now,’’ Addazio said. “He’s got a depleted roster, he’s got to re-recruit the roster, and he’s been hit with some injuries. That combination is never good whether you’re a basketball team or a football team. You hope that, like last year, if we had stayed healthy we’d have been a bowl-eligible team. But we couldn’t stay healthy and we had so many deficiencies.

“He’s got health issues too, but he’s doing an unbelievable job. They’re going to recruit, bring guys in, develop them, and build a program. It’s going to happen. That’s what’s going to happen. They’re going to build that program. It’s going to take a little time, but they’re going to build it and you can see it already. You can see it and it’ll happen.’’

Christian said there’s an inherent connection in having both programs in rebuilding mode at the same time.

“I think what it does, it bonds us,’’ Christian said. “I knew what he went through, and he knows what I’m going through. I think the one thing that’s a common theme is the competitiveness of him and I. I think we both understand the process. It’s kind of a unique thing that football and basketball are rebuilding at the very same time, but that’s what it is. That’s what happened.

“I’ve always supported him, I think he’s a phenomenal coach and I’m going to continue to do so. It’s going to be fun watching it grow back because you’ve got to take your hits when adversity comes and then you remain strong in your faith and belief in what you’re doing and then you turn it around.’’

Julian Benbow can be reached at jbenbow@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @julianbenbow.