AMHERST - While the mood certainly is still jovial around the University of Massachusetts men's basketball team, the Minutemen are set on proving that Saturday's 73-72 win over Memphis was not a fluke.

To do that, they will have to play well against Boston College at 7 tonight at Conte Forum.

"We have to come Wednesday and show everybody this is how it is and it wasn't a fluke or anything," sophomore big man Sean Carter said. "We still need to get better defensively. We could have put that game away sooner Saturday, but we had a lot of turnovers.

"But everybody is playing with more confidence now," Carter added. "That was a good win. We needed that."

Gurley said he does not want Saturday's win to be the high point of the season for UMass (6-5).

"We came back and practiced hard," he said. We want to use this as a stepping-stone. We don't want to rest on this victory. We put it behind us.

"We know we have a tough game coming up on Wednesday night," Gurley added. "In order to reassure ourselves that we can compete with the best teams on any given night we have to go out on Wednesday and really prove to everyone that we can do this every night not just on one night."

Freshman forward Terrell Vinson has gotten his share of media attention after hitting the game-winning basket, but even he was putting the win over the Tigers in the rearview mirror,.

"It was a nice win, but we have BC on Wednesday," Vinson said.

UMass coach Derek Kellogg said he is curious to see how his team would respond.

"I just want to play well because I don't want our guys to take wins for granted. They need to build on the win and keep getting better every day," Kellogg said. "Hopefully they feel as comfortable going into Boston College and they play with the same passion and intensity that I'm looking for.

"You have to put everything in perspective," he added. "You played a good game against a good team. Major college basketball means putting together 30 games like that in a row."

The Eagles have been inconsistent this season at 7-4. They opened the season with wins over Dartmouth and St. Francis (N.Y.) before falling to a struggling Saint Joseph's team. After beating South Dakota State and losing to Northern Iowa, BC delivered its best stretch of the season with three straight wins over Providence, Michigan and Miami.

But the Eagles lost back-to-back games to Harvard and Rhode Island before beating fledgling Division I program Bryant 72-46 on Sunday.

The Boston College roster is almost identical to last year's team that beat the Minutemen 85-81 in overtime at the Mullins Center. The Eagles have no newcomers, but the one player they lost, star guard Tyrese Rice, is hard to replace.

Junior Rakim Sanders, a double-digit scorer each of his first two seasons at the Heights, has played just three games this season with an ankle injury, including the last two.

Corey Raji leads Boston College in scoring (15.4 points per game) and rebounding (8.4), while Joe Trapani (15.1 points, 7.4 rebounds) and Reggie Jackson (13.9 points, 7 rebounds, 4.5 assists) are not far behind.

NOTES - UMass freshman guard Freddie Riley rode the exercise bike and shot around during the second of two Monday practices, but he'll likely still miss Wednesday's game.

Chestnut Hill is the fourth place in Massachusetts where the Minutemen have played this season.

Ricky Harris (1,519 career points) needs 16 points to pass Harper Williams and move into eighth on the all-time scoring list at UMass.

Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. For more UMass coverage, including a UMass sports blog, go to http://www.gazettenet.com/category/sports/umass-sports.