Eagles Cash in Holy Cross Turnovers on the Break, Steamroll Crusaders
Andy Backstrom (@andybackstrom)
Publisher
Earl Grant’s teams at College of Charleston didn’t play with pace. That wasn’t the Cougars’ forte. It makes sense for a defense-first squad.
But, in Grant’s seven years with the program, College of Charleston never ranked higher than 289th in adjusted tempo, according to KenPom.
Friday night at Boston College, however, Grant’s Eagles played fast.
BC created 12 steals and converted a total of 19 Holy Cross turnovers into 28 points. The Eagles outscored the young Crusaders on the break, 22-0, and rolled to an 85-55 win.
Eleven of Holy Cross’ 14 players are underclassmen. And it showed, given the Crusaders’ ball security issues. The first 40 seconds saw DeMarr Langford Jr. drill a stepback jumper and then steal a pass from Holy Cross freshman Kyrell Luc before finishing on the other end with a layup.
Not only was it the start of the Eagles’ on-court thievery, but it was also the beginning of Langford’s dominant first half. The sophomore, who ended up with a career-high 20 points, scored 16 in the opening 20 minutes, at one point tying the best field goal percentage (86.7%) by an ACC player with a minimum of two games and 15 shot attempts since 1996-97.
Like BC’s season-opening win against Dartmouth, center Quinten Post was balling out, too. He blocked Crusaders guard Bo Montgomery on one end, leading to a two-handed TJ Bickerstaff dunk on the other. And then, soon after, he fed a beautiful baseline pass to Langford, who scored underneath the cup to give BC a 15-4 lead.
Unlike Tuesday, however, Eagles point guard Jaeden Zackery was a major contributor. The freshman fouled out in just 14 minutes of action against Dartmouth. Three days later, he was an acrobat in traffic, squeezing through defenders and finishing off balanced in the lane.
Zackery rounded out the night with 13 points, six assists and just one turnover.
Everyone was getting involved for the Eagles. Five players ended up with double-digit scoring efforts, and nine etched their names into the box score, including sophomore walk-on Abe Atiyeh, who sunk a garbage time free throw to the joy of the Eagles’ celebratory bench.
Even Fred Scott, a grad transfer from Rider who missed the season opener and was out most of last year with a knee injury, joined in, scoring five points.
BC staked itself to a 49-27 halftime lead. The thing was, Holy Cross wasn’t shooting poorly. In fact, despite missing three of their top players (senior forward Gerrale Gates and sophomore guards RJ Johnson and Bubba Humphrey), the Crusaders were converting 52% of their shots.
That was largely thanks to the play of freshman Kyrell Luc and big man Michael Rabinovich, who combined for 22 of Holy Cross’ 27 first-half points.
What’s more, both Luc and Rabinovich surpassed their career highs in the opening period.
The problem was, Holy Cross committed 12 turnovers in that span, and the Eagles were shooting at an even better 67.7% clip.
It was more of the same in the second half, which started with James Karnik recording one of his three steals and then, not too long after that, netting a 3-pointer. Everything was bouncing the Eagles’ way. Literally.
There was one sequence where Makai Ashton-Langford’s dribble ricocheted off Luc’s leg back to Ashton-Langford and, practically in stride, the graduate guard finished a layup.
Post found himself in foul trouble in the second half, but Grant kept him in and he kept doing work down low. He even flashed a spin move on the baseline that helped him extend BC’s lead to 68-36.
Bickerstaff continued to impress with his versatility at the four. He had a ferocious two-handed dunk that complemented a 4-of-5 first-half performance that featured a 3-pointer.
It was just one of those nights. BC was up for all but 19 seconds of action and led by as many as 37 points. The Langford brothers teamed up for 32, and Grant ushered in the walk-ons for the waning minutes of play.
The Eagles coasted to a 2-0 start. And while defense is certainly the emphasis, BC has shown through two games that it has some capable scorers, too.
It will have to prove that versus stiffer non-conference competition.
And then again in ACC play.
