Basketball, arguably unlike football or hockey, is a sport that rewards individual greatness. A single player can dominate a game—or, at least, that was the case in Conte Forum on Saturday afternoon, as Miami men’s basketball beat Boston College 74–68.
Miami leading scorer Malik Reneau scored the game’s first bucket, hitting a three to put the Hurricanes (18–5, 7–3 Atlantic Coast) on the board. He had 13 points by the end of the first half, but BC (9–14, 2–8) held its ground and trailed by just one heading into the locker room, 34–33.
“You’ve got to give [Reneau] some credit,” BC head coach Earl Grant said. “He did a good job of taking his team to the promised land—I mean, just, it was hard to guard.”
Reneau really turned it on in the opening minutes of the second half, scoring six points in 1:31 to put his team up 41–35. Although BC made a comeback after going down 10, and even stole a brief one-point lead, Miami closed it out down the stretch to hand BC its fourth straight loss.
“We needed, like, three more possessions where we did a better job of taking care of it, or boxing out,” Grant said.
Reneau and Shelton Henderson presented a problem for the Eagles all afternoon. They spent the first half wreaking havoc in the paint, scoring 23 of the Hurricanes’ first-half points. The duo ended with a combined 42 points and 14 boards.
“They isolated us, got to the free-throw line, and we lost a two-possession game,” Grant said. “A great effort. Nice to see us have three guys in double figures—typically, in a game like that, we win. But it came down to possessions.”
Boden Kapke was BC’s star throughout the first half, scoring nine of the Eagles’ first 16 points. He ended the game with an 18-point, 11-rebound double-double.
“They do a really good job, and Coach Grant does a really good job of them knowing what to get to next after the first action doesn’t work,” Miami head coach Jai Lucas said. “So we had to give them different rhythms to make them have to think a little bit, instead of flow.”
Miami pulled away in spurts throughout the second half, but was never quite able to leave BC in its rearview mirror.
Things got tight again when freshman Caleb Steger came in off the bench and hit two quick threes. On the second, the ball bounced high off the rim before dropping in to make it a 53–49 game. Once again, though, Reneau took over on the other end, kissing it off the glass to stretch the lead back to six.
BC ended with nine threes, four of which came from Donald Hand Jr. as he put up 4-of-6 shooting from behind the arc. He finished with a team-leading 20 points on just nine shots from the field.
He hit one with about six minutes to play that cut Miami’s lead in half and made it a 57–54 game. Payne broke away for a fast-break layup, and the Eagles were within one. Hand hit another shot shortly after—this one a turnaround, off-balance jumper in the paint—to give the Eagles a 58–57 lead.
“[Hand] didn’t force much—he only took nine shots to get 20 points,” Grant said. “And that’s kind of more of who he needs to be for us, so we need him to build on that. We need him to keep that going if there’s gonna be a breakthrough in the next two weeks.”
Kapke hit a three with about 3:30 to play to tie the game at 61, and though Miami matched it with another three, a dunk from Jayden Hastings fired up the crowd once again.
A BC turnover and a Miami fast-break bucket with less than two minutes to go seemed like the nail in the coffin for the Eagles, as it put Miami up five.
Fred Payne hit a desperation three to make it a four-point game once again, but a Miami dunk from Ernest Udeh Jr. with 30 seconds to go all but ended BC’s chances at an upset.
“If you look at Boston College, they’ve been there in almost every game—you know, look at their game against Virginia, they had the lead at half,” Lucas said. “They’re right there.”
