Here’s what stood out from BC head coach Earl Grant during the weekly ACC coach’s media availability on Monday. Boston College is on the road twice this week with a matchup against Pitt set for Tuesday and Florida State on tap on Saturday.
ON JAEDEN ZACKERY’S HEALTH
“He was fine (after the NC State game) obviously, a little sore. He played about 24 minutes. It was nice to see him get out there because he had only played a few minutes in the Virginia Tech game, but he looked fine (Sunday) and he’s scheduled to practice today. I think he’s fine.”
ON WHAT THE TEAM CAN TAKE FROM NC STATE BLOWOUT
“Typically, there’s one or two games every year that you’ve got to take the box score, tear it up and throw it away. Most seasons you’ve got to that. Then, there’s one or two games where you play out of mind…really just play an unbelievable game and you hope you can bottle it up. So, I think that was one of those games where the first half, I thought we defended and did some good things and they made a lot of contested threes. In the second half, they got off to a good start the first four minutes, they got us down 16, maybe 18 in the first four minutes of the second half and it stayed that way until about five minutes to go. Again, I think every year there’s going to be one or two games that you want to just throw them out and there’s one or two games because your team is playing so well.”
ON THE STATUS OF DeMARR LANGFORD JR.
“He’s moving in the right direction. I think probably, we should see him back on the floor hopefully this week, but he’s definitely moving in the right direction.”
ON THEIR NEXT OPPONENT, THE PITT PANTHERS
“Much improved. Like I said, a lot of new players, not a lot of the familiar faces from last year. There’s a few guys from last years that’s doing some good stuff, but they really did a good job flipping the roster. They’re playing with a lot of confidence, they’re playing well. It’s amazing the job that (head coach Jeff Capel III) has done. It wasn’t looking great last year, but he’s flipped it around.”
ON WHAT IS THE SAME AND WHAT IS DIFFERENT AT DUKE THIS SEASON
“The same is that they’ve got about seven 5-star players and they’re typically pretty young. The difference, I’m not sure there’s a lot of differences. Maybe there’s not as many…typically, there’s one or two guys that have been around for a long time at Duke, guys maybe there for three or four years you can depend on from an experience standpoint. But, you always kind of see that one or two guys that’s been there forever..the same is they’ve got a bunch of long, athletic, 5-star players.”
ON WATCHING PARTICULAR GAMES WHEN SCOUTING A TEAM
“I’ll watch different games, but I’m studying us more. I’m studying us more because we’re still at the point of trying to be consistent. We’re starting two freshmen, we’re playing another freshman a lot of minutes, so that's a little different from most of the models in the league and what other people are doing. We’re building for the future. We’re hoping we can continue to develop those guys, get them to buy-in to what we’re trying to do defensively and offensively. Just trying to play our best basketball, so it’s a lot less about the opponent to be honest with you. Most of these opponents, it’s been a lot less about them and more about us because we’re in a phase in our program, again, where we’re just trying to build and have something that we stand for. It’s a fight for our culture more than it is worrying about the opponent. But, yeah, we’ll watch North Carolina vs. Pitt - we’ve already watched that - Miami vs. Pitt, there’s certain teams that played them better, but it’s more about us making sure that we show up and play BC basketball at the highest level that we can play at.”
ON EXPECTING MORE ENERGY FROM PITT AFTER ELIMINATING THE PANTHERS FROM THE ACC TOURNAMENT LAST SEASON
“Not 100% sure, I’ve just got to make sure our energy is good. Like I said, they’ve got a lot of new guys, they’ve been playing energetic every night, they’ve been playing really good basketball. I’ve just got to make sure our guys are energetic and ready to play and not focus my energy on what they’re going to do.”
CHAS KELLEY III WINS ACC CO-ROOKIE OF THE WEEK
After helping BC get a big upset win over Virginia Tech with a 17-point, 4-assist performance, Chas Kelley III received co-Rookie of the Week honors for the ACC on Monday. Kelley also added seven points and three steals in 21 minutes of action during a loss to NC State. This is the 16th time an Eagle has been named as an ACC Rookie of the Week. It's the first time BC has earned weekly honors from the conference since December 14, 2018 when Wynston Tabbs was named Rookie of the Week. It's also the first ROTW award during league action since Ky Bowman won it in early January of 2017.
