Eagles Grit Out OT Win Against Wake to Advance to ACC Tourney Quarterfinals
Andy Backstrom (@andybackstrom)Publisher
There wasn’t much said when Boston College men’s basketball’s ACC Tournament second-round bout with NCAA Tournament-hopeful Wake Forest went to overtime Wednesday afternoon.
It was the Eagles’ third overtime game of the season. The first—a 99-95 loss at Notre Dame—was important for the growth of the program, first-year BC head coach Earl Grant said.
Going into the second—an 88-78 defeat at Georgia Tech—the Eagles’ mindset was, in Grant’s words, “We’ve been here before.”
Just four days later against Wake Forest, the message was simple: execute.
“And the players just went out there and did what they needed to do,” Grant said.
BC, which erased a 10-point, second-half deficit with 6:05 remaining in regulation, jumped out to a two-possession lead in the extra frame and never gave it up, shocking fifth-seeded Wake Forest, 82-77, while advancing to its first conference tournament quarterfinal since 2017-18.
“I thought this season really brought our endurance up with everything we saw this year, whether it be wins or overtime losses,” Grant said. “Just really happy for the guys to be able to continue to climb up the hill and advance.”
The 13th-seeded Eagles (13-19, 6-14 ACC) came into the matchup having just won their first conference tournament game in four years, a victory that snapped the program’s 14-game losing streak in the month of March. Wake Forest (23-9, 13-7), meanwhile, needed a win to rest easy on Selection Sunday. Despite boasting the ACC Player and Coach of the Year in Alondes Williams and Steve Forbes, respectively, the Demon Deacons entered Wednesday as part of ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi’s “last four in” category.
But Wake Forest didn’t come out with that sense of urgency. BC, which suffered an embarrassing 30-point loss to the Demon Deacons on Jan. 24, did.
“I think we just came out with a little bit more fire under us,” graduate guard Makai Ashton-Langford said.
The Eagles staked themselves to a 10-2 lead, making their first five shots. Four of those field goals came in the paint as centers James Karnik and Quinten Post both made their presence known, and the backcourt duo of Ashton-Langford and Jaeden Zackery blew by Wake Forest guard Daivien Williamson for layups.
Forbes was visibly upset. The Demon Deacons responded with a 9-0 run that, at one point, featured an Isaiah Mucius block, 3-pointer and drawn charge—all in succession.
Then the Eagles countered with a 12-2 surge, largely thanks to back-to-back 3-pointers from Brevin Galloway and Zackery, to put BC up, 22-13, more than midway through the period.
Jake LaRavia was the first Demon Deacon to really wake up. The All-ACC second teamer, who broke out this season after transferring from Indiana State, scored 13 of Wake Forest’s final 14 points of the half. He was practically unstoppable, inside and out.
He got BC guard Kanye Jones to trip over himself before drilling a stepback jumper. LaRavia blocked DeMarr Langford Jr, then drew a foul from beyond the arc. He even cleared an Eagles double team with a clean pump fake. And, just before intermission, he cut through the paint to finish a Williams feed.
Wake Forest outscored BC, 16-8, in the final 7:25 of the first period after Zackery and Karnik both took a seat on the bench with a pair of personals. Seven first-half turnovers didn’t help the Eagles’ underdog cause, either. But, nevertheless, they clung to a 30-29 lead at halftime.
BC—which ranks 278th nationally in adjusted tempo, according to KenPom—controlled the pace in the first half. Wake Forest, the second-highest scoring team in the ACC, ramped it up in the next frame.
The teams went back and forth in the early portion of the second half, trading mini runs. BC created some separation with a 6-0 spurt, capitalizing on the tail end of a 2:15 stretch that included three Demon Deacon turnovers.
Then Wake Forest made up its lost ground with a 12-6 run, during which they made 5-of-7 shots. Two of those were Damari Monsanto 3-pointers. All four of his triples came in the second half or overtime.
The Demon Deacons swung another momentum-shifting punch BC’s way with an additional 12-4 run that gave them the lead and a 59-51 cushion. Monsanto hit another 3-pointer. And then Grant was assessed a technical after berating an official following a no-call on a Karnik post move.
Grant had no choice but to reinsert Zackery, who had mounted four fouls. The Eagles, who missed as many as eight straight shots and were down by as many as 10 points, used an 11-1 run to tie the game at 66-66. The Langford brothers accounted for seven points in that sequence.
Galloway reclaimed the lead for the Eagles by refusing a ball screen and netting an off-balanced 3-pointer. But, with under a minute to go, a bad Langford turnover resulted in a Williams transition layup. Williams, who checked in and out of the game in the second half and overtime with apparent cramping, had the ball in his hands with a chance to win the game following an Ashton-Langford giveaway.
Except, the eldest Langford brother redeemed himself, drawing an offensive foul.
“He kind of put his head down, and I knew I was going to take the charge, right as soon as he did that,” Ashton-Langford said of Williams. “Just instincts by me I guess.”
His younger brother piped in: “It was the play of the game, too.”
Although Galloway missed a layup attempt at the buzzer, the Eagles got out to a five-point lead in overtime with a Zackery 3-pointer and an Ashton-Langford floater. Wake Forest missed its first three shots in the extra frame and turned the ball over three times in the five-minute period.
Langford, who finished with a team-high 19 points, sealed the deal with his patented turnaround jumper a few feet in front of the ACC logo.
Monsanto hit one last 3-pointer, but the game—and maybe Wake Forest’s NCAA Tournament prospects—had already slipped through the Demon Deacons’ grasp.
BC, picked to finish dead last in the ACC this year, played spoiler. And, as a program, took another step.
“We ain’t got nothing to lose,” Langford said. “If we lose, we go home. If we win, we advance. And that’s what coach preaches in the locker room. We got up and went out there and got it done tonight.”
