Breaking Down BC's Potential Game-Tying Play at Pitt
Andy Backstrom (@andybackstrom)Publisher
Pittsburgh men’s basketball lost its first three ACC games by a combined five points. The Panthers, who led each of those three defeats at the under eight-minute media timeout in the second half, were consistently on the wrong side of heartbreak.
Until they switched places with Boston College Saturday evening.
The Eagles had a chance to tie or win the game with 4.3 seconds remaining in the Petersen Events Center.
BC was without three key contributors—point guard Jaeden Zackery as well as centers James Karnik and Quinten Post—all of whom fouled out.
Earl Grant said postgame that, even if Zackery was still available, the first-year Eagles head coach probably would have called the same play.
“We’d probably have guys aligned in different spots,” he explained. “But we knew exactly where we wanted to go with the ball.”
Grant continued: "Our first option was Makai [Ashton-Langford]. And, if he didn’t have it, our second option was Brevin [Galloway] at half court. He was setting a back screen for TJ [Bickerstaff]. He could have caught it in the air and flipped it back to ‘Boo’ (DeMarr Langford Jr.) on the run. So he could kind of go and lay in."
Galloways' back screen followed Bickerstaff's pick for Andrew Kenny, who floated out to the left wing. Galloway allowed Bickerstaff to slip out into the paint.
Because Ashton-Langford was open on the inbound, his younger brother didn't follow Galloway for the dribble handoff.
Instead, Ashton-Langford had a couple of choices, Grant said.
"He could get to the rim or stop and shoot the three to win it. And he got to the rim."
Now, it's important to remember that Ashton-Langford was having the best game of his career. He had scored a personal-best 23 points and knocked down four 3-pointers—more than he had converted in his last five games combined.
And he already sunk a few off-balanced layups. Like when he used a Justin Vander Baan screen to infiltrate the paint and then spun past Pitt forward John Hugley before kissing a high-arcing layup off the top of the glass.
Or when he went at Panthers guard Femi Odukale, drawing Odukale's fifth personal in the process, and threw up a one-handed, acrobatic layup. It fell, too.
So putting the ball in Ashton-Langford's made sense. So did him taking it to the hole. He even got a decent look at the cup.
"Just couldn't make it," Grant said.
