The phrase goes “defense wins championships.”
Spoiler—Boston College men’s basketball definitely did not win any championships on Tuesday night.
But the Eagles did hold Virginia Tech to 11 points in an entire half of basketball and beat the Hokies 54–36, breaking a four-game losing streak and picking up their third conference win.
That’s the fewest points scored by a BC opponent in a half in the shot clock era, which dates back to 1985.
So, it’s not a championship but still pretty significant for a team that has struggled as much as BC (11–15, 3–12 Atlantic Coast) has this season. Going into the matchup, BC had lost three of its last six games in overtime. Two of those went into double and triple overtime.
“We gotta try to build on it,” BC head coach Earl Grant said. “It’s hard to do what we did.”
But the Eagles finally broke through and stopped Virginia Tech (11–15, 6–9) from scoring a single point for a 9:23-long stretch in the first half, forcing tough shots left and right and fighting over screens to stay tight to their man.
“We wanted to be sound,” Grant said. “We were just trying just play sound, not gamble, just make them shoot contested shots, rebound the first miss, show your hands to the referees.”
On BC’s first few possessions of the game, Chas Kelley III and Dion Brown both drove into the paint and picked up tough buckets, setting off the Eagles’ bench early on.
Kelley was back in the starting lineup after being brought off the bench while Joshua Beadle saw his time as a starter. After committing four turnovers and playing extremely limited minutes in Saturday’s loss to NC State, Beadle started the game on the bench.
“Josh Beadle was playing really good basketball,” Grant said. “I had a conversation with Chas—‘you’re gonna be better coming off the bench.’ And then I had the same conversation with Beadle a few days ago.”
With about nine minutes remaining, Chad Venning got things going in the post as well, as he threw down a dunk over his defender to secure a seven-point BC lead.
On the next possession, Elijah Strong scored an and-1 bucket. BC only shot six free throws in the game and at a 50 percent clip.
The Hokies broke their scoring drought with 6:10 left in the first half, but a bucket from Venning and a three from Donald Hand Jr. kept the game under control.
The Eagles put on another defensive clinic at the tail end of the frame, as Roger McFarlane tallied a block with about 40 seconds left, and Kelley stopped a fast-break opportunity for the Hokies by breaking up a pass midair.
The Eagles’ offense wasn’t picture-perfect—they only scored 26 points of their own through the first 20 minutes—but they did just enough offensively and more than enough defensively to maintain a 15-point lead going into halftime.
“We really had to lock into the game plan and execute what coach told us to do,” Hand said. “We boxed out, and they’re a physical team—they love offensive rebounds. We took all that away. So we came out on top because we executed the game plan.”
The second half opened less smoothly for BC than the first had ended, as the Hokies cut the lead to 30–20 with a jumper from Ben Hammond. But every time the Hokies made a play, Hand found a way to make one on the other end. His three stretched the lead back to 13 points.
Shortly after, Brown dished the ball to Jayden Hastings, and Hastings rose up for a dunk that injected some life back into BC’s offense after a quiet streak.
With 8:28 left to play, Strong grabbed an offensive rebound and kicked it out to McFarlane on the right wing, who drilled the shot to put the Eagles up 46–24.
The cherry on top for BC’s bench came with less than a minute left when a Kelley lob hit Hastings just right, and he threw down a dunk, concluding scoring and giving the Eagles a much-needed near 20-point victory.
“We talked about it this morning,” Grant said. “Don’t give up. You’re gonna get a reward. There’s no way you can show up every day and work. It’s principal—you show up and work hard. You give good effort, have a good attitude. Something’s gonna break at some point, and hopefully, we’re in the process of breaking through, but it’s hard.”
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