When it comes to rivalries, it’s one of the Massachusetts men’s basketball team hasleft.

In the seven years since the Minuteman basketball team vacated the national spotlight, games with traditional rivals Connecticut and Temple have lessened in appeal each year.

So while the Huskies are simply too powerful for their neighbors to the north, and John Chaney’s bunch wallows in mediocrity as well, UMass-alum Al Skinner’s Boston College Eagles have provided the Minutemen with the most spirited competition among the team’s they love to hate.

Thus, when the two squads meet at BC’s Silvio O. Conte Forum on Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. for the ninth annual Commonwealth Classic, there will certainly be more than just a victory at stake.

“We have a lot of UMass graduates in Boston, so it’s important for us to go there and play well,” UMass coach Steve Lappas said. “We’ve got so many young guys it’s great, because they get excited about every game, but I’m sure they’ll be very excited to go to Boston and play.”

Lately, the series has been dominated by the Eagles (5-0), as BC has posted three consecutive wins in the teams’ annual meeting, and four straight against UMass (2-2) overall while leading the all-time series 18-17.

Two years ago, it was junior captain Anthony Anderson – then in his first year with the Minutemen, who nearly pulled off a rousing comeback for the Minutemen with down the stretch with a flurry of three pointers before BC eventually prevailed 80-78 at the Heights.

Last season at the Mullins Center, in what was a six-point game at halftime, guards Troy Bell (21 points) and Ryan Sidney (18 points) helped key a 14-0 Eagle run that eventually led to an 80-62 runaway.

The game, however, was overshadowed by the antics of the UMass student section, which was part of the season’s largest crowd at 6,392. Beginning with an unidentified fan throwing an object onto the court, and culminating with chants of vulgarity directed at Bell after the Eagle’s all-time leading scorer lashed out at former Minuteman Jackie Rogers following a hard foul, the crowd’s actions inspired Lappas to chastise the student’s behavior over the public address system.

So with emotions having run high in such recent meetings, Lappas feels it’s time for the Minutemen to assert themselves competitively in the intra-state rivalry.

“We need to start winning some games in this rivalry,” he said. “A rivalry usually goes back and forth and it’s about time we start going back and forth again.

“We know we’re capable of coming out and playing with Boston College.”

For the Maroon and White, whether or not they can play with, and beat, the Eagles depends on their ability to stop the inside presence of the combination of Uka Agbai and Craig Smith.

Agbai, a 6-8 262-pound senior who missed all of last season after being awarded a medical red shirt following a serious neck injury, has averaged 11.8 points and 4.2 rebounds per game this season in what will be his last in a BC uniform, and sits just 26 points shy of the 1,000 mark.

Smith, meanwhile, is in just his second season at the Heights, and appears to have a bright future ahead of him after setting the BC freshman scoring record with 617 total points.

The Los Angeles, Calif. native averaged 19.9 points and 7.9 rebounds per game in his first year and was listed as a preseason top 50 candidate for the 2004 John R. Wooden All-America team. This season he leads the Eagles in both points per game (16.4) and rebounds per game (8.6) while averaging a team-high 30.6 minutes per contest as well.

“Their inside kids are tremendous,” Lappas said of the pair. “They have a lot of new kids on the perimeter, so their strength is on the inside right now.

“Both kids are very strong and very physical and good scorers around the basket, so we’re going to have our hands full, especially since we have young big guys.”

Down low, the Minutemen will continue to rely on two-time defending Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Week Rashaun Freeman, as well as junior center Gabe Lee to contain Smith and Agbai as well as create offense in the paint for themselves.

Freeman, a sophomore in his initial year of eligibility, is coming off of his worst game of the season in which he scored just four points against Vermont. However, he posted impressive numbers in his first three games, scoring 15.7 points per game while also grabbing 8.7 rebounds a contest.

Lee, meanwhile, has been a defensive force for the Maroon and White. The Camilla, Ga. native and Northfield/Mt. Hermon graduate leads the team with a whopping 5.25 blocks per game, including seven blocks apiece in a win over St. Francis and a loss to Hartford.

Also important for UMass will be whether or not its backcourt can duplicate its performance against Vermont in which Anderson drained seven three pointers en route to a career-high 29 points, and freshman Art Bowers and Maurice Maxwell combined for 30 points on 4-4 shooting from beyond the arc.

“It’s something we’ve got to look to build off of,” Lappas said. “I think it helped some of the young kids’ confidence, Maxwell and Bowers in particular.

“We still need to be able to look inside and outside. [Against Vermont] we had a great outside game but didn’t have our inside game. We need to get to the point where we’re doing both of those things.”