Most of the time when the road team hits a dagger from deep, a tense, unpleasant silence fills the arena. Not in Conte Forum on Saturday night.
Tyrese Proctor rose up and sank a stepback jumper to put No. 3 Duke up 26–24 over Boston College. Instead of uncomfortable silence, though, he was met with cheers.
“The representation of Duke fans has always been great,” Duke head coach Jon Scheyer said. “This was, I think, the best I’ve ever seen it.”
Proctor’s make put the Blue Devils (16–2, 8–0 Atlantic Coast) up for good. They never relinquished their lead and ultimately beat BC (9–9, 1–6) 88–63.
Duke won the game handily. But for a good chunk of the first half, it looked like Duke’s 11-game win streak had a chance at being broken, and BC’s three-game losing streak might come to an end.
“Guys were confident, the atmosphere was unbelievable, so if you weren’t ready to play, you need to choose a different sport,” BC head coach Earl Grant said.
The Blue Devils have the fifth-best field-goal defense in the country but don’t sniff the top 50 in 3-point defense. BC didn’t find its early success by shooting from behind the arc, though. The Eagles found it in the post.
As the shot clock wound down on the very first play of the game, Chad Venning went into the paint and finished a reverse layup. In a pattern that would repeat itself for the rest of the game, though, freshman-stud Cooper Flagg responded with a bucket on the other end.
Venning proved himself as a battler in the paint. On BC’s second possession of the game, he got his own offensive rebound and scored on a putback. The Eagles forced Flagg into a tough shot two possessions later, and Donald Hand Jr. turned it around with a three that set BC’s student section on fire.
Freshman Jayden Hastings came in for Venning and followed the veteran’s example, fighting through contact to put the Eagles up 15–11, then coming up with a block with 12:40 left in the half.
But all good things must come to an end eventually. They did for BC, anyway.
“We had a good game plan,” Grant said. “We were executing that plan at a high level, and we got away from it a little bit. The game got choppy.”
It’s no surprise that the projected No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft wouldn’t just go away. Flagg led all scorers, ending the game with 28 points on 14 shots from the field.
The Eagles fell behind by eight after an Isaiah Evans 3-pointer with 1:54 left in the half. On the other end, Roger McFarlane sank a pull-up 3-pointer as the shot clock expired.
“We did a good job on Flagg early, but he’s hard to contain,” Grant said. “That’s a hard job for any team, not just us.”
Flagg got the ball on the other end and delivered an emphatic dunk the next possession that killed any momentum McFarlane’s make generated for BC. The Eagled headed into the half trailing 40–34.
When the teams came out of their locker rooms for the second half, it was a different game. In the first nine minutes of the half, Duke outscored BC 23–9. The things that were working in the first half for BC just weren’t anymore.
In the first half, BC shot 58 percent from the field, compared to 32 percent in the second. BC also made just five threes in the loss. Duke, meanwhile, lit it up from three thanks to three from Proctor and another four from Isaiah Evans.
“Isaiah Evans came in and really opened the game up,” Grant said. “He made four threes right there in the middle of the second half, and he changed the game.”
Even when the Eagles did get to the free throw line with chances to cut into the deficit, it didn’t go to plan as they shot 14-of-26 from the line.
Duke’s 11-game win streak turned into a 12-game streak, BC fell to .500, and a lot of the fans in Conte Forum saw the type of game they wanted to see.
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