BLACKSBURG – Virginia Tech looks to bounce back from its ugly road loss to Miami when it returns to Cassell Coliseum today for a 6 p.m. game against Boston College, a meeting of two teams vying to move up from the bottom of the Atlantic Coast Conference standings.

Boston College should come into Cassell Coliseum – where it won last year, to snap a four-game losing streak in Blacksburg – sky-high after upsetting Florida State this week. With a freshmen-laden lineup, BC coach Steve Donahue has tried to downplay wins and losses with his young players, but he said this week that reaping the rewards of hard work by securing a big win definitely gave his team a shot in the arm.

Virginia Tech, meanwhile, is coming off the Miami loss, a game in which it scored just 49 points and no player besides Erick Green hit double figures. It was a loss that left Tech coach Seth Greenberg frustrated that his team’s level of play didn’t match its level of execution in practice leading up to the game.

Both teams have their sets sight on moving out of the bottom third in the ACC standings. Today’s winner will have a much better shot of reaching that goal.

The Hokies, with a win, could be in position to finish the year off in respectable fashion. They play three of their next four at home, including today, and still have a winnable road game at Clemson left on the slate.

Here are three keys for today’s game.

1) Will Virginia Tech’s defense be able to knock Boston College’s offense back off track?

The Eagles are last in the ACC in scoring, averaging 59.5 points per game, and last in field-goal percentage, hitting a paltry 40.7 percent of their shots. But Donahue believes his young players are starting to figure things out on the offensive end.

“I think we’ve gotten better in terms of knowing where to get the shots,” Donahue said. “I wouldn’t say we’re a finished product, but there’s definitely progress.”

Donahue is in his second season at BC after leading to Cornell to three straight NCAA appearances out of the Ivy League. He runs the same motion offense with the Eagles that he founds success with at Cornell.

“We’re asking our kids to do a lot of reads and a lot of work on the offensive end,” Donahue said. “It requires a lot of cutting and spacing.”

In the win over Florida State, BC came out red-hot from beyond the 3-point arc, hitting eight of its 14 shots from that range in the first half.

“Their kids have played a lot of minutes,” Greenberg said of the Eagles’ youngsters. “The times they’re good, they’re very good. They’ve gotten a lot better. They’re more comfortable in the system.”

The Hokies, meanwhile, have been one of the ACC’s better defensive teams, ranking fourth in points allowed (62 per game) and fourth in field-goal defense (39.9 percent).

2) Can the Hokies play fast and run the floor without turning the ball over?

Donahue said this week that Tech is much more effective in transition than running its half-court sets. Hokies’ leading-scorer Erick Green – who missed the first BC game this year — is particularly adept in the open floor but he isn’t alone. The problem, Greenberg said, is that the Hokies can’t be satisfied just with playing fast – that pace has to translate into points, something that didn’t happen in an ugly, turnover-filled loss to Miami the last time out.

The last time Tech faced Boston College – a 61-59 loss in Chestnut Hill on Jan. 14 – the two teams combined for a whopping 36 turnovers (19 by BC and 17 by the Hokies).

3) What kind of a start will Virginia Tech get off to?

Want to find a common characteristic in the Hokies’ 13 wins this year? Tech led at halftime in each of them. So how the Hokies start clearly has a correlation with how they finish. Sure, they’ve led some games at the half, only to lose – see Syracuse and North Carolina – but to have a chance, Tech needs to get out in front before heading to the dressing room.

Against Miami, Tech found itself down by nine just 10 minutes into the game. The Hokies went into the lockerroom at halftime down eight. Conversely, in Tech’s last win – 67-65 victory over Clemson – the Hokies got off to a quick start, built a big half-time lead, and then held off the Tigers’ furious comeback bid.

Follow Mike on twitter @RTD_MikeBarber and reach him by e-mail at mbarber@TimesDispatch.com.