CHESTNUT HILL - This was a game the 2022-2023 Eagles would have lost.

Hosting a tough, talented A-10 Richmond team on Wednesday night at Conte Forum, BC found itself in a dogfight, trailing by four at halftime. But, if this year really is going to be different, the Eagles knew they couldn't lose this type of game the way they did so often last year.

Thanks to a 17-point, 10-rebound performance from Quinten Post, a 15-point, 10-rebound performance by Prince Aligbe and some stifling defense late, BC found a way to get to 3-0, winning 68-61.

As a team, BC shot just 39%, but the Eagles out-rebounded the Spiders 44-31 - including 14-7 on the offensive glass - while knocking down 89% of its three pointers (7-18) for the win.

"Defensively, we weren't necessarily executing the game plan," head coach Earl Grant said of BC's struggles in the first half. "We wasn't doing what we said we needed to do to be successful. It took until the middle of the first half until we finally decided we were going to do what we said we needed to do to be successful...I thought the first 10 minutes of the game, they really had us on our heels. We were beating ourselves. They were doing a good job of beating us, but we were helping them.

"I thought we cleaned it up in the middle of the first half and I think we won the rest of the game, the last 28 minutes of the game."

Trailing 34-30 after a pretty ugly first half, Jaeden Zackery (6 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists) and Post immediately scored back-to-back buckets to tie the game, with Post missing a three, following his own shot and putting home a nifty layup.

After trading buckets, an Aligbe three with 16:52 left in the gave gave BC its first lead (39-38) since around the 18 minute mark in the first half. A thunderous Post jam about two minutes later made it 43-40 Eagles. A stop and a Mason Madsen corner three suddenly made it a six-point lead as BC looked like a completely different team than the one that showed up in the first half.

Richmond cut it to three with Post off the floor, but Devin McGlockton (8 points, 8 rebounds) hit a layup immediately coming out of the under 12 timeout to push it back to five. The Spiders cut it to 50-48 with less than 10 to go on a three ball heading into another timeout. Leading by four, Post drained a big step back three to make it 55-48 with 8:52 to go.

A cold streak fell over both teams until a Claudell Harris Jr. three made it 58-51 with just over five to play. A massive sequence with Prince Aligbe coming down with an offensive board in traffic, hitting a free throw and then a steal of an inbounds and layup by Harris gave the Eagles their first double-digit lead of the night at 62-52 at the under four timeout.

Despite going on a five-plus minute scoreless run, Richmond found a way to cut it to 64-59 with just 1:29 to play. Zackery iced it with a pretty turnaround step back as the clock ticked down to 24 seconds as Richmond inexplicably didn't foul and let the Eagles kill most of the clock while pushing the lead to seven. Aligbe knocked down two free throws to officially end it with 15 seconds remaining.

"Really, just trusting my work," Aligbe said of his big night. "Also trusting the word that Coach Grant has and just playing as hard as I can for as long as I can. I have things I'm blessed with. That's athleticism, so I just try to use it to my full advantage and I was also knocking down shots, so it was a recipe for success tonight."

Harris Jr., (10 points, 4 rebounds) McGlockton and Aligbe accounted for BC's first five-plus minutes, but the Eagles went 3-8 before the first media timeout and trailed 12-7. In a big man matchup that probably flew under the radar a bit, Neal Quinn held his own early against Post and opened the game with eight points while D-ing up BC's big guy pretty well.

The lead grew to 17-9 before Post went 1-2 from the line. A layup and an ugly inbounds play that turned into a turnover for BC put Richmond up 21-10 just over the 10 minute mark. Minutes later, a series of missed free throws, layups, put-back rebounds and continued turnovers on inbounds plays eventually led to a Jordan King hit a three to make it 26-14, forcing an Earl Grant timeout.

As ugly as it was, the Eagles were still hanging around. An impressive put-back over two defenders from McGlockton made it 28-18 as the clock ticked under six minutes. Mason Madsen knocked down two free throws as momentum started to shift with a few defensive stops.

Two more Post free throws cut it to 28-22. Both teams went cold for a bit before Post made it an 11-0 run with a deep three with 3:25 left.Two more Madsen free throws coming out of a timeout cut it to one. Richmond had a big help in the comeback, going 0-10 before a Quinn bucket finally halted things a bit. The Spiders got it back up to 34-27 with a mini run in the final moments before a Donald Hand Jr. three at the buzzer made it just 34-30 heading into the break.

"That was big for us energy wise," Harris Jr. said of the Hand Jr. shot. "We started out very flat and we had to dig ourselves out of a hole. That three that DJ hit at the buzzer that kind of gave everybody a wake up call like, 'it's time to go.'"

The Eagles shot just 9-27 in the first half and turned it over seven times to Richmond's one. BC did finish with 11 turnovers for the game as well, but once again, this feels like a different team and the only thing that mattered in the end was the result.

"I think every year is different," Grant added. "Last year we had a lot of first-year guys. This year, we've got a lot of second and third-year guys. I think just being in those situations, they remember last year too. They know...I guess they're learning how to dig their way out of it. That's new for us. At home, being down 12 or 14, we had to learn how to dig our way out of that situation and we did."