Boston College men’s basketball prides itself on taking care of the ball. After coughing up the rock just nine times in regulation while putting on an offensive clinic versus Notre Dame Wednesday, the Eagles entered Saturday’s game at Syracuse 48th nationally with just 11.2 turnovers per game.

They surpassed that mark in the first half of their second meeting with the Orange.

BC’s 12 turnovers in the opening frame resulted in 15 Syracuse points. That was the margin of the Orange lead at intermission, and, despite a 10-0 BC run in the back half of play, the Eagles couldn’t carry enough offense over from South Bend to close the gap.

Syracuse won, 76-56, recording its eighth straight win against old Big East rival BC.

The Eagles (9-16, 4-11 ACC) were still missing forward TJ Bickerstaff, who has been out with a calf sprain since the second half of the Duke game. They did, however, get center Quinten Post back from COVID-19 protocol. But BC started in a four-guard lineup—a look that yielded significant success the previous two games.

The Eagles didn’t stick with it the whole game, though. Gianni Thompson got minutes at the four, and Grant rolled with both James Karnik and Post at times.

Regardless of who was in for BC in the first half, the Eagles struggled to navigate Syracuse’s 2-3 zone. The Orange (14-12, 8-7) used a 9-0 run to build a 10-point lead by the midway point of the period. Syracuse was aided by four BC turnovers in the span of 4:46.

Following their best shooting performance of the ACC slate, the Eagles started 3-of-13 from the floor, including 0-of-7 from beyond the arc.

“I think it’s a combination of a very good zone as well as just not being sound enough,” Grant said when explaining his team’s turnover woes Saturday. “There was some mental fatigue there.”

There was also some physical fatigue, coming off the overtime loss less than 48 hours before. So Grant turned to reserves throughout the game. Even forward Andrew Kenny got some minutes in the first half. His only shot attempt was swatted out of bounds by Bourama Sidibe.

Aside from DeMarr Langford Jr., who notched 10 points on 4-of-5 shooting, no Eagle could really get going in the first half.

Meanwhile, Syracuse continued to extend its lead. At one point, the Boeheim brothers combined for 10 of 13 points during a 13-2 Orange surge. BC ended the period on a 6-0 run, in large part because of two baskets from Post down low, but Syracuse held steady, 36-21.

To make matters worse for BC, Langford was sidelined the entire second half with a toe injury. Grant said postgame that BC’s trainer is “optimistic that it’s nothing major.” Nevertheless, the Eagles’ “engine” of late was not available.

That said, BC carried the momentum it had at the end of the first half to the beginning of the second. Brevin Galloway hit his lone 3-pointer of the game—despite finishing with 11 attempts—to cut the Eagles’ deficit to 12.

Cue a 12-2 Syracuse run that featured a Buddy Boeheim turnaround jumper over Jaeden Zackery and a Frank Anselem and-one. When all was said and done, four Orange players reached double figures, and the Boeheim brothers teamed up for 31 points.

Rather than rolling over, BC fought, which it has so often done this season. The Eagles responded to the tune of 10 straight points, courtesy of back-to-back Makai Ashton-Langford jumpers, a Karnik and-one and a hard drive by Zackery.

All of a sudden, BC was back within 12 points of Syracuse. Again, though, that’s as close as the Eagles would get.

Five of the Orange’s six second-half 3-pointers came in the final 11:15 of regulation. Joe Girard III had three of them. Villanova transfer Cole Swider knocked down a pair.

“Probably the most critical thing with them is they’ve been together for three years,” Grant said when discussing the Orange. “They only practice the zone, and they really got an elite shooting team. Those guys can really shoot the three effortlessly.”

BC, on the other hand, was 5-of-28 from downtown. The Eagles needed a lot more shooting than that to dig themselves out of their second-half hole.

Reserves on either side etched their names into the scoresheet in the waning minutes, such as BC’s Gianni Thompson and Kanye Jones as well as Syracuse’s Paddy Casey—a graduate student walk-on who played his undergrad ball at Division II University of the Sciences in Philadelphia.

But, for the second time in 11 days, the Eagles suffered a decisive defeat at the hands of Syracuse. BC has now lost five in a row and seven of its last eight games.

“It’s gonna take some intestinal fortitude and some mental toughness to continue to chop and chop at it and stay the course and not grow weary,” Grant said.

“And that’s just where we are right now.”