With time quickly winding down to build even a slight bit of momentum before the ACC tournament, BC kicked off a two game road week with a late night matchup against a surging Pittsburgh team.

The Panthers entered winners of five straight, second in the ACC standings, tied with Virginia in terms of conference record. This was also the first time Pitt was getting a crack at BC since the Eagles blew them out in the ACC tournament a year ago.

In what was a “same old story” type of game for BC, the Eagles hung around with Pitt for a little while, trailing by nine at the half and cutting it to five early in the second before ice cold shooting and 14 turnovers helped the Panthers run away with it, 77-58.Mason Madsen led BC with 14 points and Jaeden Zackery added 11. Quinten Post had a tough night, scoring just seven points to go with five rebounds. Pitt was led by 21 from Blake Hinson (six made three pointers) and four others scored in double figures. The Eagles are now 12-15 overall (6-10 in the ACC) while Pitt continues to roll, moving to 19-7 overall and 12-3 in the ACC. If the ACC tourney started tomorrow, the Panthers would be the No. 1 seed.

“We had a lot of self-inflicted wounds,” said head coach Earl Grant. “I thought our poise wasn’t at the level it needed to be. They had a really good game plan to be physical with our bigs and mentally early in the game, they were physical, they hit them, they hit our bigs at the rim. We couldn’t finish at the level we needed to finish with their length. It just kind of got us out of our game. We just started focusing on things we couldn’t control and I thought it took us away from things we should have been focused on, which is executing and taking care of the ball, making sure we got our defense set. With the lack of poise, the times we didn’t execute they made us pay in transition.”

It was an ugly start for both teams as the Eagles and Panthers each started the game 2-7. Pitt led 7-5 five minutes in with BC getting a three from Post and a tough layup inside from Devin McGlockton. A couple minutes later with Pitt up 10-5 Madsen buried a deep three to cut it to two, but that was just the beginning of a big run. BC tied the game after a stop on a backdoor cut and layup from McGlockton off a nice feed from the newly named Acc co-rookie of the Week, Chas Kelley III. The Eagles soon grabbed their first lead of the game on a wide open layup for Zackery off a defensive stop.

BC pushed the run to 9-0 with a CJ Penha layup off a fantastic look from Zackery. The two found each other again following a quick steal to make it an 11-0 run and a 16-10 Eagles’ lead with 11:30 to go in the half.Pitt quickly settled things down and cut it to 16-15 before Zackery buried a three. Makai Ashton-Langford pulled his best Steph Curry on the next possession, nailing a very long three to push it to 22-15. That little buffer zone didn’t last long though, as Pitt cut it to 24-22 with 7:07 to go. The Panthers eventually tied the game at 24 a minute or so later and reclaimed the lead with a couple of free throws after a BC turnover.

Pitt was physical early and often with Post and things finally got chippy between the big man and a couple of Panther defenders down low with 4:47 left. After a review, there were matching technicals called on both sides and both sides were warned about keeping the physical play within reason. Post sat down and Pitt added to a 15-2 run to make it 32-26 until another Madsen three cut it back to a three-point game in the final three minutes.

Two TJ Bickerstaff free throws with 2:05 left brought BC within four at 35-31, but the Eagles went scoreless the rest of the way and the Panthers pushed the lead to nine at the half. In the first 20 minutes, BC shot 11-29 (38%) and 5-13 from three (38%). Meanwhile, Pitt was 13-27 )48%) and 6-12 from three. The Panthers also turned it over nine times while BC had seven.

“There were some situations where we played like a young team and we weren’t very mature,” added Grant. “Just trying to get our team to understand you’ve got to execute. You’ve got to be poised, you’ve got to be able to slow it down some and control the pace, especially on the road.”

Post continued to have a frustrating night, picking up his third foul less than three minutes into the second. BC got a quick eight points out of the gate, but Pitt knocked down shots as well, maintaining a 47-39 lead five minutes in. Hinson’s fifth three of the night for Pitt quickly made it a 12-point game following the under 16 media timeout and the Panthers pushed their run to 10-0, making it 54-40.

Things continued to snowball as BC was in the midst of a five minute scoreless drought, Hinson hit a corner three and was fouled. He completed the four-point play after a timeout to put the Panthers up 58-41. The offensive futility continued as BC’s bucket-less streak continued and the deficit soon grew to 22 with under 10 minutes left.

A Madsen jumper after 13 straight misses - the first since Zackery cut it to 44-39, a span that lasted over seven minutes - made it 65-43. Madsen continued to be the lone bright spot, nailing another three with under six to go to make it a 70-49 game. Ashton-Langford (7 points, 6 rebounds) fouled out with five minutes left, adding to the disappointing night for the Eagles. Kelley III added two three pointers late to make it 76-56. BC finished just 13-33 in the second half in what was just another disappointing night in a long line of them for this young Eagles team in 2023.

“I think it’s a combination of good players missing shots on the road/we took the wrong shot,” said Grant of the huge scoring drought. “We’ve got to know why we’ve been successful when we’ve won and we’ve got to be okay with moving the ball, grinning and giving a defense a chance to break down so you can get a good rhythm three…that goes back to the poise, it’s loud, team goes on a little bit of a run, you’re down 10 and you take a shot. Some were pretty good, some were early and some was Pittsburgh doing a good job defending like they have all year. It was a combination of all that stuff.”

BC takes on Florida State down in Tallahassee on Saturday (noon) and then the Eagles are off until Wednesday, February 22 when No. 7 Virginia visits Conte Forum (7 PM).