Nine years ago, Boston College men’s basketball ended its 2016–17 season on a 15-game losing streak. The program was on its longest losing streak since then as it headed into Wednesday’s game against Wake Forest—a game that reports speculated may have been one of head coach Earl Grant’s last in Conte Forum.
But even after blowing a lead they’d held for almost the entire second half and giving up two crucial threes during the final minute, the Eagles narrowly avoided their ninth straight loss, beating Wake Forest 68–67 on a last-second tip-in from Aidan Shaw.
It was BC’s (10–18, 3–12 Atlantic Coast) first win since Jan. 21. Wake Forest (14–14, 5–10) star Juke Harris scored 38 points in the Demon Deacons’ second straight loss.
Harris hit two threes in a span of seven seconds in the final half-minute, putting Wake Forest up 67–66.
“Somebody asked me, ‘What happened?’” BC head coach Earl Grant said. “Well, I mean, look at the stats. Juke Harris made two threes.”
Grant called a play for Fred Payne on the other end, but the sophomore guard whiffed on a layup. Shaw was in the right place at the right time, though, and got a hand on the ball to tip it up and in for the win.
Aside from Harris, Wake Forest made just 10 of its 43 attempts from the field.
“I’ve just been doing this 37 years, and I don’t think any one player’s ever gonna carry you,” Wake Forest head coach Steve Forbes said. “You can’t win major basketball, ACC-level games with just one guy scoring.”
BC led for the better part of the game’s first 10 minutes as both teams struggled to score, but Wake Forest went on a 6–0 run to take a 14–13 lead at the halfway point of the first period.
Wake carried that advantage all the way to the halftime break. BC kept things close, but a Harris three with 2:59 on the clock stretched Wake’s lead to seven. The Demon Deacons maintained that lead and ended the half up 29–22.
BC’s offense went 9 of 29 from the floor in the first half and 1 of 15 from three. Wake Forest didn’t shoot much better percentage-wise, but 19 first-half points from Harris made up for anything the rest of his team lacked.
Payne turned it on coming out of the locker room, scoring 11 points in the first 4:01 as the Eagles went on a 14–1 run to start the second half. He hit three 3-pointers over that span while Boden Kapke added on another to give the Eagles a 36–30 lead.
“It’s intensity level—we can rest in the spring,” Grant said. “We needed to pick up our intensity level, pressure the ball more, extend the catches more, just get after them, like, take the chance.”
Harris made his first bucket of the second half with about 15 minutes to play, but the Eagles just kept coming. Luka Toews took a charge to give BC possession, and Payne finished on the other end to give BC a 40–32 lead.
Everything began going the Eagles’ way. Shaw, who was 1 of 13 from three on the season going into the game, drained a 3-pointer as the shot clock expired and stretched BC’s lead to double digits with 11:38 left.
That didn’t last, though. Wake Forest executed its comeback, eventually taking a 67–66 lead on Harris’ three with 18 seconds left.
But Shaw’s last-second heroics boosted the Eagles to a win for the first time in more than a month, and BC finally broke its streak of last-second losses. It followed through on most of the pattern—letting the other team back into the game while faltering in the final minutes—but this time, the result was different.
“Our job is to try to win this year, finish the season strong, see what that looks like, and then take the information we got to say, ‘Okay, how do we take the next step? How do we get BC back to where it belongs?’” Grant said. “I feel great. I mean, you know, nothing for me to feel bad about. It’s a great place—we built it up, and right now we’re trying to navigate through a storm.”
