On and off the floor, this increasingly charmed BC basketball season continues to trace its progress from the Paradise Jam, a nice little three-day tournament played Nov. 22-24 in a cozy little gym owned by the University of the Virgin Islands. Al Skinner went down there with a bunch of kids who wanted to play some basketball. He came home with a 3-0 record and something even more important -- a true team.

That team has now won 23 games, which is anywhere from eight to 15 more than people expected. The latest was a classic character-builder for a squad that starts two freshmen and two sophomores. BC shut down 19th-ranked Syracuse over the last five minutes, took its first lead with 37.5 seconds remaining, and walked off the Madison Square Garden floor with an exquisite 57-54 triumph that sends them into tonight's semifinal against No. 1-seeded Pitt.

BC came here feeling fairly safe about receiving an NCAA bid, but needing a victory to nail it down. That business was taken care of Wednesday afternoon with a workmanlike dispatch of Georgetown. That accomplished, BC was, in effect, playing with house money against Syracuse, and will be doing the same tonight, and if it comes to pass, tomorrow night. But that's me talking, not the coach.

You know what this is? It's an entire bonus season. Due to personnel departures, both planned (Troy Bell graduating) and unplanned (Ryan Sidney and Andrew Bryant leaving because of personal problems and grades, respectively), little was expected of BC in the ever-competitive Big East. Respected preseason magazine Blue Ribbon picked them 11th, which sounded about right.

So who knew? You want the truth? Anyone who was fortunate to see them play in the Virgin Islands nearly four months ago. When BC defeated Appalachian State, Monmouth, and Wichita State, it was evident that Al was going to have himself a nice little team, especially after watching the 84-81 victory over Wichita State, a game played at an amazingly high level (165 points and 19 combined turnovers) for something contested so early in the season.

"It was great to have all of us together down there," says Uka Agbai (13 points, 3 rebounds vs. the Orange). "It was important for us to get to know each other. It was sort of like the time we went to Europe in the summer."

"It was a different chemistry-builder," adds assistant coach Bill Coen. "It was a different environment, and guys had to hang with each other out of their normal comfort zone. Because we had so many new guys, this was important."

Props, therefore, to athletic director Gene DeFilippo, not that he's seeking any. The man who signed BC up for this valuable jaunt to the tropics can't even recall just when he did so. "I'm not sure," he explains. "It was two or three years ago. I thought two or three years ago it would be a different team."

At that point, whenever it was, no one in the BC program had even heard of Jared Dudley, the astonishingly precocious freshman forward who demonstrated his worth in this very big game by making several irreplaceable contributions (how about 8 offensive rebounds and 9 for 10 from the line?) on a day when he was shooting 2 for 12. Here is a kid who didn't enter the BC recruiting picture until last August, and then only because touted recruit Dan Coleman decided he couldn't leave the Land of 10,000 Lakes for a strange place where they call traffic circles "rotaries."

"[Dudley] was basically in the same position I was in when I came here," says Craig Smith (22 manly points and 10 even more manly rebounds). "He came with people not really knowing who he was and wanting to surprise people." The 6-foot-7-inch Dudley, a classic stat-sheet filler, surprised his way to a unanimous berth on the Big East All-Rookie Team.

"He should have been Rookie of the Year," maintains Smith. "They must have been looking for flash. That's not his game. He's a utility guy. I didn't see any other freshman making a contribution like his every single game."

By the end of the preseason, Skinner had to feel he was sitting on something. But after three days and nights in St. Thomas, he pretty much knew. The bonding was evident. Skinner allowed the team to enjoy the sun and the beach and just be goofy kids. Beyond that was a simple fact of life: His team had to play three games in three days, something that never happens during a college regular season. If a team isn't playing a preseason tournament, it will not have that experience until the postseason.

Flash forward to the Big East Tournament. "When we played in the Virgin Islands, we were in a similar situation," Skinner says. "We had a young team there. We're still young, but we're maturing. We have an understanding of what it takes now. I'm just hoping we can continue this."

Yesterday's game could only have been won by a proper team. Zero 3-pointers? No problem. Forget no threes, how about no shots made longer than 10 feet? No problem. Ten official Syracuse blocks and another 10 "alters"? No problem. Trailing for the first 39:22? No problem. BC had a plan, and Al's kids were able to stick with it.

This is a certifiably tough-minded team, as in T-E-A-M.

"That trip to the Virgin Islands was very important," Smith says. "We were isolated down there. We were trying to discover our own identity. I think we found it."

Craig Smith is only 20 years old. You think he knows how hard finding that elusive "it" really is? Or how seldom you find "it" on a beach?

Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is ryan@globe.com.