Boston College continues to feast on regional mid-major packages on the house hardwood.
The Eagles outscored Holy Cross 62-33 within the second half and rolled to a 95-64 win earlier than 4,866 followers on Friday night time at Conte Forum. BC improved to 7-3 total, 5-1 at dwelling and lower the Crusaders’ lead within the collection to 58-56 within the 114th assembly.
The Eagles recorded earlier dwelling wins over Fairfield, Harvard and Central Connecticut and can revisit their Big East roots in opposition to St. John’s within the 2023 BABC Brooklyn Showcase on Sunday on the Barclays Center.
“This my third year here and every single year I’ve been here something bad has happened in the non-conference,” mentioned junior guard Jaeden Zachery, who shot 8-of-12 from the ground and led BC with 18 factors.
“We can’t take them lightly because for them this is their NBA championship type of games, coming to an ACC team’s house. We can’t treat them lightly and come out and play like we know how to play.”
BC shot 47.3% from the ground with 11 made threes, 5 by guard Mason Madsen, with 42 rebounds, 18 assists and 18 pressured turnovers that had been transformed into 20 factors. Center Quinten Post recorded his fourth double double of the season with 12 factors, all within the second half, with 10 boards, seven assists and 6 steals.
“I think we are really good when we can knock and ball loose and we have athletes that are fast and we can convert pretty quickly,” mentioned BC coach Earl Grant.
Grant’s technique in opposition to the undersized Crusaders was obvious from the opening tipoff. The tallest man in Holy Cross’ beginning 5 was 6-foot-6 junior ahead Caleb Kenney, who drew the job of guarding Post within the paint.
Post is on the watch lists for the Naismith, Wooden and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Awards and he was positioned to enhance his nationwide standing in a number of key statistical classes.
However, HC coach Dave Paulson countered with a collapsing double workforce from totally different instructions each time Post bought the ball and he exited the primary half and not using a area purpose. Post offset the double groups with kickouts and contributed 4 assists and three defensive rebounds to BC’s 12-9 lead into the second media timeout.
“Early on when we were in our man-to-man we tried doubling him and made him kick it out,” mentioned Paulson. “But they punished us and they were prepared for it. We tried throw different looks at him and make other guys beat us.”
BC’s transition sport kicked on the halfway factors within the half and went up 22-11 when Madsen buried his third straight trifecta with 9:09 to play.
Holy Cross loved spurts of vitality that prevented BC from occurring sustained runs, however the Eagles led 28-17 into the fourth media timeout. Holy Cross dominated BC down the stretch and lower the result in 33-31 on the break.
“I thought Holy Cross did a good job junking it up,” mentioned Grant. “Some of it was us lacking open pictures, some on the rim and threes and we left about 18 factors of the ground within the first half.
“In the second half we turned down good shots to work and get great shots and played more in the paint and made better decisions with the ball.”
Post scored his first area purpose at 18:54 of the second half throughout a 13-5 that made it 46-36 into the primary media timeout. Madsen netted his fourth trey from the nook to provide BC a 51-36 lead with 15:42 to play. Zachery scored on consecutive drives to make it 59-41 with 12:52 to play and BC maintained its sizable result in the end.
Source: www.bostonherald.com