With under five minutes left to play in the first half of its Tuesday night matchup against Syracuse, Boston College men’s basketball faced a set of circumstances startlingly similar to what it experienced last time the two teams squared off.
Despite a change in venue, a strong and sizable Syracuse contingent frequently drowned out the home fans at Conte Forum, while the Orange put BC on the ropes—up 30–23 with 4:24 remaining in the half.
Unlike the two teams’ last matchup, however, the Eagles dug in, found some resolve, and stole back control of the game in a 21–0 surge. Fueled by that nearly seven-minute stretch, BC (13–8, 4–6 Atlantic Coast) picked up an 80–75 win to split the season series with the Orange (14–7, 5–5)—its first time defeating Syracuse since Feb. 28, 2018.
“We always talk about the breakthrough, but it starts with every game one by one,” Jaeden Zackery said. “Being able to come through and finally beat Syracuse and show that we’re capable and strong enough—whether the whole stadium’s orange, whatever color it is—this shows we’re strong enough to do that.”
Though Syracuse threatened to erase the Eagles’ blistering run in the ensuing minutes of the second half, Claudell Harris Jr. woke up from his recent slump and stumped the Orange at nearly every turn.
With under eight minutes left to play and BC’s lead down to three points, the Charleston Southern transfer single-handedly pieced together 11 straight points for the Eagles.
“Harris had five threes,” Syracuse head coach Adrian Autry said. “They had 10 threes as a team. I thought that was the difference.”
Harris knocked down 5-of-9 attempts from deep en route to a team-high 19 points—his first time reaching that mark since Jan. 6 at Georgia Tech.
“The shots found him,” BC head coach Earl Grant said. “We got him good quality, rhythm shots. He didn’t have to take tough shots, so I think that’s the biggest difference.”
Zackery and Quinten Post—both of whom went scoreless in their last time playing Syracuse—ignited BC’s offense in the opening minutes, scoring the Eagles’ first nine points.
“I kind of knew coming in, I really couldn’t play any worse than that last game,” Zackery said. “I had to play better, and I know I got to be more confident, be physical, and kind of lead the team.”
Improved play from its two longest-tenured starters, however, couldn’t stop BC from accruing another sizable first-half deficit. Syracuse took its first lead at the 12:50 mark with a JJ Starling three, parlaying that momentum swing into a 20–11 edge exactly four minutes later.
A pair of threes from Chas Kelley III—who started his third-straight game in place of Harris—and Mason Madsen helped put BC back in front, 31–30, with under three minutes left in the first half.
The Eagles built a 37–30 halftime lead by limiting turnovers and playing complementary basketball, according to Grant.
“In that stretch, we didn’t turn the ball over much, so they weren’t getting transition baskets,” Grant said. “And our defense—we was able to stop them from getting easies, and because they weren’t getting easies, they had a harder time against our half-court defense. Our defense was always set in that run. So as well as we played offensively to get 21 points—they didn’t score. So obviously, our defense was feeding our offense.”
But while BC’s lead eventually ballooned to 14 points under two minutes into the second half, the Orange still had some gas left in the tank. After trading baskets for several minutes, Syracuse trimmed its deficit all the way down to two points with under 10 minutes remaining in regulation.
With the Eagles’ collapse seemingly imminent, Harris took over.
While Harris nearly willed his team to an improbable comeback victory against the Orange 20 days ago, he finished the job this time. Scoring 14 of his 19 points in the final eight minutes, Harris dusted off the kind of microwave scoring ability that made him so valuable to the Eagles prior to his slump.
“It’s definitely good to feel the trust behind the coaching staff and behind my teammates to give me the ability to keep shooting—to keep shooting the shots that I take,” Harris said. “So it’s all just trusting.”
Although Syracuse used a stifling full-court press to cut the Eagles’ lead down to five in the last eight seconds, BC hung on to claim its fourth ACC win at the halfway point of conference play.
“We are expecting a breakthrough—what does that mean?” Grant said. “I don’t know. But we’re expecting it, so we just got to keep working hard, got to keep showing up.”
