Eagles Handle Struggling Louisville

CHESTNUT HILL - There was no “if BC does this, they should win” when it came to the matchup against Louisville on Wednesday night.

Simply put, the Eagles were in must-win territory if there ever was any and there was no real plausible defense as to how or why the visitors should make this a competitive matchup.

Louisville came to Conte Forum as the worst team in the ACC, winless in conference play and only victorious in two of their 19 games overall this season. Meanwhile, BC was coming off a very big win over Notre Dame. With a visit to No. 7 Virginia looming on Saturday, there was no way the Eagles could allow the Cardinals to beat them on their home floor.

The problem is, no one told Louisville that.

The Cardinals gave BC everything it could handle and then some, even taking a lead at halftime. But, behind 21 from Makai Ashton-Langford and 22 from Quinten Post, the Eagles survived the scare and came away with a 75-65 win.

Louisville is now 2-18 (0-9 in the ACC) while BC improved to 10-11 overall and 4-6 in the conference.

“I really wasn’t worried about the slow start coming in because we had two really good days of preparation,” said head coach Earl Grant. “I thought our spirit was good in practice and it felt like we were making progress, I just think in the first half we were defending well, but they had a player (ELLIS) that really got going. They shot the ball well in the first half and we weren’t executing or working hard enough to get the best shot.”

Both teams went nearly three minutes without a bucket to start the game until a deep Quinten Post jumper got things started. The floodgates actually opened a bit and despite a Post dunk and a Ashton-Langford three pointer, the Cardinals built an 11-7 lead five minutes in.

An ugly start went from bad to worse as Louisville soon pushed it to 15-7 while BC remained ice cold from the field, going 3-for-10 early on, including 1-for-6 from beyond the arc. Grant called a timeout after a way-too-easy layup gave the Cardinals the eight-point lead with 12 minutes left in the half. The lead ballooned to 19-7 until a Jaeden Zackery (15 points) steal and Prince Aligbe layup. Post followed with a euro step and runner in the lane to cut it to 19-11.Post took a shot to the face and had to come out for a bit while fitting a mask for his face. In the meantime, an Ashton-Langford jumper cut it to six, but a mini Cardinals run soon put BC in a 24-13 hole. Post came back in with 3:54 left and the Eagles down 31-21, thanks only to Ashton-Langford’s otherwise the deficit would’ve been much, much worse.

Despite the ugliness, a rebound an a pretty up-and-under layup from Ashton-Langford in the final two minutes cut it to 33-27. After a quick Louisville bucket, Post had a dunk in the final 20 seconds. Aligbe had a steal and wide open layup in the final seconds, but missed at the buzzer, keeping it a 35-29 game at the half.

The Eagles shot 46% from the field in the first 20 minutes while Louisville was on fire, shooting 60%. BC was just 1-for-11 from three while the Cardinals were 5-for-9. In other words, it couldn’t have gotten much worse for the Eagles or their fans, but it was still just a six-point game.

“I just tell them the truth, tell them what I see, tell them what they’re doing well, tell them where they need to make changes, the adjustments we need to make,” Grant said when asked how he delivers his halftime messaging, because clearly it worked on Wednesday.

“The best part about the halftime is we were down 11 with 3:50 to go in the first half and we went into the locker room at six, so we started turning the game around in the last three minutes of the first half. We told them great job of finishing the half, let’s win the first four minutes of the second half.

On the halftime messaging and adjustments Zackery added, “I feel like we’ve been doing really well before Grant even gets (in the locker room) as players just talking with each other, saying what we’re seeing and everything. When he comes in, he just pushes us and tells us that middle eight is what we’ve got to win every game. Those last four minutes of the first half and the next four minutes in the next half and that’s what we did.”

DeMarr Langford Jr. buried a three to open the second half and a Zackery layup soon followed, bringing BC within one. The Eagles’ offense was better early, but Louisville’s hot offensive night continued, pushing the lead to 45-38 four minutes in. The Cards did their best to let BC hang around and two Aligbe free throws soon made it a four-point game.

Moments later with 12:23 on the clock, BC took its first lead since being up 4-3 when Post buried a three pointer to make it 46-45, extending an 8-0 run. Louisville went to a zone defense to cool down BC a bit while their own offense hit a bit of a dry spell too. With 9:10 to go, Zackery hit a three to put BC up 51-50, it was just the fourth made three of the night to that point for the Eagles. Another three from No. 3 on the next BC possession after a timeout and a strop pushed it to 54-50. With Ashton-Langford on the bench with four fouls, Post added two free throws for BC’s biggest lead of the night at six.

The lead dwindled to 58-57 until a Mason Madsen three with 4:17 left put the Eagles up 61-57. Another Zackery three after a couple Louisville free throws made it 64-59, but again the Cards had a quick answer. With 2:50 to go Post buried a corner three to give the Eagles a six-point cushion at 67-61. A big steal from Aligbe and a follow up from Ashton-Langford off a missed Zackery layup put BC up by eight with a minute and a half to go.

From there, one more Zackery fast break layup and two Ashton-Langford free throws in the final 35 seconds helped seal the deal. The Eagles finished 25-for-51 from the field (36%) and 8-for-22 from three (36%) but still found a way to win late.

As the schedule gets smaller and tournament time creeps closer, do this young Eagles feel any pressure on nights like the one they had Wednesday?

Nah.

“We’re trying to take each game one game at a time,” said Ashton-Langford. “Honestly, nobody really believed in us at the start of the season anyways, so I don’t really look at it as pressure at all. We’re just out there hoopin’ and trying to win, trying to win possessions and win the game, for sure.”