BC Falters At Home Against Wake
CHESTNUT HILL - For the past three games, BC had made Conte Forum a tough place to play.
With a national ESPN2 audience watching a matchup with Wake Forest on Saturday night, the Demon Deacons made the Eagles’ house their own personal playpen.
BC was never really in this one as Wake Forest waltzed to a (SCORE). The Eagles have now lost two straight at home after beating Virginia Tech and Duke. BC is 8-10 overall and 2-5 in the ACC while Wake improved to 13-5 overall and 5-2 in the conference.
“It might be hard to throw away,” said head coach Earl Grant when asked if this type of loss is one that sticks with guys or is one that can be quickly dismissed as a bad night. “We’ve got to watch the film and try to figure out what exactly happened. It ain’t ever as bad as you think it is and it ain’t ever as good as you think it is. The emotions are flowing right now, but when we settle down and watch the film I’m sure they’ll realized played well. They hit some shots, spread us out and did some good things. We need to play a little bit better.
“I don’t want to just look at the score and say ‘they won by that margin,’ but I think some of it right now it’s the emotions of the score. Again, it ain’t ever as bad as you think it is and it Ian’t ever as goof as you think it is…we’ll watch the film and make a true assessment of what exactly the issues were and how we can make corrections.”
What started out and looked like it was going to be a putrid first half for BC ended up as “it could have been much worse” when the teams went to the locker room as the Eagles trailed by 10 at the break.
Wake jumped out to a 9-4 lead at the first TV timeout and pushed it to 13-6. BC fought back and a Devin McGlockton put-back rebound soon made it 13-11. After a DeMarr Langford Jr. layup with 8:14 left in the hall cut it to 21-17, the Demon Deacons went on a run, building a 35-17 lead before a three pointer from Makai Ashton-Langford made it a 15-point game. A backdoor layup from CJ Penha Jr. and another one in transition from Ashton-Langford made it a 39-26 game in the final two minutes. With 1:31 to go Jaeden Zackery buried a three and in the final 30 seconds another nice cut from Penha was rewarded on a nice pass from Chas Kelley III and a layup made it 41-31 at the half.
"There’s a tendency if you get down 10-14 points, you kind of get excited about trying to score and you get sped up, there ain’t no 12-point baskets,” added Grant. “There’s only twos and threes you can get, so you need to continue to take the right shot, continue to drive for each other and execute. I think that’s the only thing you can do to stop a run is executer at a high level.
“We had two spells, two-minute spells where we didn’t get what we needed to get, turned it over a bit and that’s how runs happen.”
Unfortunately for the Eagles, 10 was about as close as they’d get as Wake was able to maintain a cushion throughout the second half. The Deacons’ size down low, shot making outside and ball movement was too much for BC to mount any kind of comeback.
Prince Aligbe hit a jumper early in the second to cut it to 46-35 and an Ashton-Langford corner three four minutes in cut it to 48-38. An Aligbe three pointer a few possessions later made it a 52-41 game, but Cam Hildreth (20 points) took over for a little while and Wake pushed it to 64-41.
After a timeout, Mason Madsen hit a three to make it 64-45, but Wake continued to make shots on the offensive end and rebound on the defensive end, limiting BC’s chances to claw their way back into it with a significant run. Another Madsen three with just under eight minutes left made it 71-50 before Wake methodically closed things out down the stretch, thanks in large part to the dominance in the paint from Andrew Carr (21 points, 13 rebounds).
BC is back in action on the road its next two games. The Eagles face North Carolina Tuesday and Notre Dame next Saturday.