It was fitting that Elijah Strong scored the first bucket for Boston College men’s basketball as it took on Temple. He finished at the basket 19 seconds into the game.
“You see the first one go through, and then it’s like, okay, all the butterflies are gone,” Strong said. “The confidence just was boosted throughout the whole game.”
Strong proceeded to rattle off 13 more points in the first half alone. Although his hot streak seemed to have died out by the beginning of the second half, he eventually recovered his first-half rhythm—and he did so when it mattered most.
Strong’s 25-point, 13-rebound double-double led the Eagles (2–1) past Temple (3–1) 72–69 on Friday night, but it took until the last seconds for Strong and BC to finish the night off with a win.
With 26 seconds remaining in the game, BC led by two—a measly advantage compared to its once 14-point lead over the Owls. Chas Kelley III dribbled around on the Eagles’ offensive possession, running out the clock before taking the ball into the paint himself.
His layup came up short. But Strong broke into the paint, grabbed the offensive rebound, and tipped the ball back through the net to give BC a 70–66 lead.
A pull-up 3-pointer on the other end from Jamal Mashburn Jr. brought the game within one, but it was once again Strong who stepped up. He sank his free throw after Temple fouled him on an inbound, extending BC’s lead to two points.
The tight end to the game was nothing like much of the first half. The Eagles had a 41–27 lead at one point, rallying behind a 56 percent field-goal percentage through the first 20 minutes.
“In the second half, I thought they defended a little bit better,” BC head coach Earl Grant said. “I thought they made things harder for us with their contesting. And then, you know, we were getting in the paint and we weren’t making the same decisions as we made in the first half.”
But nothing was falling for the Eagles in the second half. They shot 27 percent in the second half and just 14 percent from beyond the arc compared to Temple’s 40 percent from three.
“We played about 28 great minutes of basketball,” Grant said. “And then it was 12 where, you know, we weren’t playing the best basketball. But it’s the third game of the year, so we got to get closer to 30 minutes, you know, 32 minutes.”
Poor shooting and an inability to get stops forced BC to play either from behind or neck and neck with the Owls in the second half, as the game saw six lead changes and four ties.
With five minutes left in the game, the momentum belonged entirely to Temple. An and-1 from Strong on an offensive rebound stole the energy right back for BC, though, and gave it a 64–63 lead.
Strong’s putback and subsequent free throw sent Conte Forum into a frenzy.
“We’re not a Duke, we’re not a Carolina, but you know, we’re Boston College, and I love the people that come out and support,” Strong said.
Mashburn led the Owls in the second half, scoring 23 points in the game.
But with help from Donald Hand Jr.’s 17 points, the Eagles were able to keep the game close, then outplay the Owls in crunch time. Temple’s largest lead of the game—a 55–50 advantage after a successful drive from Zion Stanford—was quickly cut into by a corner three from Hand.
Kelley’s lockdown defense in the final minutes also contributed to the Eagles’ win, as his pressure forced Temple to call a timeout in the waning minutes of the game.
“We knew coming off the VCU game we had to tie up some screws,” Hand said. “Just focused on the little details—stand in front of our man, ball-screen D, and tonight that showed. Super proud of Chas, super proud of [Strong], super proud of the whole team.”
According to Strong and Hand, BC was prepared for crunch time because of the intensity of Grant’s practices.
“Our practices are 10 times harder,” Hand said. “So when we get in moments like that, it’s just another play, another day, another dollar.”
