Boston College Athletics
Photo by: Joe Sullivan
Thursday Three-Pointer: Week 3
December 02, 2021 | Men's Basketball, #ForBoston Files
BC showed great resolve with wins over Columbia and USF
CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. -- Boston College entered Monday night understanding how South Florida represented a litmus test to its men's basketball program. A win over Columbia three nights earlier lifted the Eagles back onto the plus side of .500, but the Bulls were an altogether different opponent.
USF's defensive chops held opponents under 60 points over the first five games, and the Bulls were less than two weeks removed from nearly beating a nationally-ranked Auburn team at home. They led that game by seven at halftime, and they slowed an SEC team to well below its usual tempo by playing the same gritty brand of basketball BC has employed through the first quarter of the season.
That the Eagles had the same mentality meant Monday's game wouldn't ever be confused with an up-tempo, high-flying, flashy basketball game, as neither team ranked outside the lowest tier of adjusted, advanced analytics' tempo measures. That wasn't meant, nor was it taken, as an insult, though, since head coach Earl Grant's entire mentality centered around the gritty, not pretty approach to basketball. It was an old Big East model and one that worked well for him at College of Charleston. Playing USF put BC right at home even as it meant points would be even more at a premium than usual.
It shouldn't have been ironic, then, when BC's offense hit on all cylinders during the season half at Conte Forum. The Eagles broke that all-important 60-point barrier against USF and won by 15 points after they balanced two very distinct halves against one another. They scored nearly the same number of points but shot the ball very differently, going nearly 54 percent from the field in the second half after using 3-pointers and free throws to offset a 35 percent percentage from the floor in the first. It was a similar system employed by USF, but the Bulls were defended better in the second half by a BC team that utilized its size and blended its athleticism onto both ends of the floor.
James Karnik and DeMarr Langford both shot 5-for-9 from the floor, and T.J. Bickerstaff got to the line while leading the team's rebounding efforts. Makai Ashton-Langford dished out seven assists (one turnover), and Quinten Post scored 11 points with three blocks in 17 minutes off the bench. The Eagles limited their turnovers by protecting the basketball, and they forced the Bulls into a torture chamber with 13 giveaways, translating into 16 points.
It wasn't pretty, but it was exactly the kind of win BC needed to add cushion to its record. It made a glorious mess of an AAC opponent and it served notice that wins would come over more than just mid-major leagues who threw caution to the wind against power conference foes. It avenged at least one of the losses to URI in a way, and it established a five-win base of operations in time for the ACC to start this weekend against Notre Dame.
Here's some of what we learned from the wins over Columbia and USF.
1) It's up to you, New York, New York.
Like the rest of the Ivy League, Columbia entered this season with a major unknown question mark after not playing last year. Half of its team hadn't played a college basketball game, and the identity of the Lions was more of a blank slate than it was two years ago when they only won six games, lost every game on the road, and struggled to a one-win conference record.
Ranking near the bottom of the KenPom ratings therefore didn't faze the Lions, who beat Binghamton in overtime and entered Conte Forum fresh off pressuring Lehigh in a seven-point loss. They weren't intimidated, and they further used the opportunity of playing after Thanksgiving to catch BC in a bit of a turkey nap after the holiday by shooting 48 percent from the first half.
That they trailed by seven and eventually lost to the Eagles by 13 largely came from two distinct areas: rebounding and 3-point shooting. T.J. Bickerstaff in particular had 17 boards to tie for the fourth-most rebounds in Conte Forum history and the most by an Eagle since Ryan Anderson grabbed the number against Florida International on November 11, 2012 (one month before he had 19 against UNH), and DeMarr Langford Jr. recorded six of seven boards on the offensive end while scoring 15 points.
Brevin Galloway, meanwhile, went 3-for-5 from outside while playing 14 limited minutes, while Columbia shot 8-for-24 from outside, a number that ordinarily wouldn't have been bad if not for BC's 6-for-14, 43 percent first half from beyond the arc. Liam Murphy led all scorers for the Lions with 19 points, but his combination with Geronimo Rubio De La Rosa only went a combined 12-for-26 from the floor. Murphy in particular was 7-for-17 after going 5-for-12 for outside
2) Captain Canada
The Columbia game didn't offer too many talking points outside of the team's overall performance, but the one negative likely assisted in the USF game after James Karnik recorded four of BC's 12 fouls against the Lions. It was the seventh time this season that the physical inside presence was whistled at least three times, and it limited Karnik's potential impact on the game after he recorded six points and five rebounds over 19 minutes of floor time.
Karnik was coming off of a double-double against URI in the game before the Thanksgiving holiday, but the fouls prevented him from continuing that pace against Columbia. Against the Bulls, he stayed off the sheet entirely, and after scoring 12 points with seven rebounds, the Canadian maple had productive minutes for the third time in a four game span.
As the lone returning big man on the BC roster, he is already in a rejuvenated state thanks to a system built around the blue collar, tough style he used to his advantage in his first three seasons at Lehigh.
3) Here Come The Irish
Going 5-3 to start the season is encouraging for Earl Grant, but the temperature at Conte Forum gets turned all the way up on Friday when Notre Dame kicks off the ACC season with a nationally-televised game on ACC Network. It's a tough matchup for the Eagles, and has been particularly tough ever since Notre Dame joined the ACC seven years ago. Notre Dame is 14-2 against BC since the 2013-14 season, but the Eagles earned a split over the last two seasons. Last year, an emotional 94-90 win at Conte Forum ended the month of February after a 10-point loss at the Joyce Center.
The Holy War on Hardwood is a little different in comparison to its gridiron and ice hockey counterparts. While the two teams have faced each other, dating back to the Roberts Center in 1963, the teams played each other sparingly before the Irish joined the Big East in 1995. Rivalries were more entrenched locally with teams like Holy Cross and Providence, though that changed as both BC and Notre Dame followed their national reputations through their old league's growth.
BC's departure from the Big East ended that matchup with a 68-65 loss during the 2004-05 season, but Notre Dame's arrival in 2014 kicked it into a different gear with a 76-73, overtime result. They are now a protected home-and-home matchup that BC plays every year in the conference, and the more recent results revealed a more evenly-matched game than the previous history would indicate. BC takes on the Irish at 6 p.m. on Friday night on ACC Network.
Layup Line: BacK on Top
Gonzaga's two games in Las Vegas last week offered potential previews of what postseason basketball might look like this year, but after beating UCLA by 20 on Tuesday night, the Zags ran into the buzzsaw of an ascending Duke team on Friday. The Blue Devils, undefeated at 6-0 at the time, beat the Zags by three in an instant classic that knocked them out of the No. 1 overall ranking and returned Coach K to the top spot in the national polls for the first time this season.
Reaching No. 1 doesn't mean a whole lot to the national championship race in basketball, but the Blue Devils reached the top spot for the 145th week in program history, most all-time and now 11 more than UCLA's 134 overall weeks. It also closed in on the total number of No. 1 weeks among the other 14 ACC schools and their combined 149 weeks in the top spot.
The record is a testament to head coach Mike Krzyzewski, who is retiring at the end of the season, and Duke enters this week as the only ranked ACC team in the Associated Press top-25, although the stay at the top may be short-lived after the Blue Devils' loss at Ohio State. The next closest team from the conference was North Carolina, which garnered nine votes in the most recent poll, while Virginia Tech, Louisville and Wake Forest all had three or less tallies.
In total, the Big Ten, which took the annual ACC-Big Ten Challenge this week, 8-6, had four teams in the poll. The conference trailed both the Big 12 and the SEC among leagues with ranked teams, with the Big 12 holding three of the top-10 spots and the SEC inserting itself into the conversation with both Kentucky and Arkansas owning the No. 9 and No. 10 spot in the polls.
USF's defensive chops held opponents under 60 points over the first five games, and the Bulls were less than two weeks removed from nearly beating a nationally-ranked Auburn team at home. They led that game by seven at halftime, and they slowed an SEC team to well below its usual tempo by playing the same gritty brand of basketball BC has employed through the first quarter of the season.
That the Eagles had the same mentality meant Monday's game wouldn't ever be confused with an up-tempo, high-flying, flashy basketball game, as neither team ranked outside the lowest tier of adjusted, advanced analytics' tempo measures. That wasn't meant, nor was it taken, as an insult, though, since head coach Earl Grant's entire mentality centered around the gritty, not pretty approach to basketball. It was an old Big East model and one that worked well for him at College of Charleston. Playing USF put BC right at home even as it meant points would be even more at a premium than usual.
It shouldn't have been ironic, then, when BC's offense hit on all cylinders during the season half at Conte Forum. The Eagles broke that all-important 60-point barrier against USF and won by 15 points after they balanced two very distinct halves against one another. They scored nearly the same number of points but shot the ball very differently, going nearly 54 percent from the field in the second half after using 3-pointers and free throws to offset a 35 percent percentage from the floor in the first. It was a similar system employed by USF, but the Bulls were defended better in the second half by a BC team that utilized its size and blended its athleticism onto both ends of the floor.
James Karnik and DeMarr Langford both shot 5-for-9 from the floor, and T.J. Bickerstaff got to the line while leading the team's rebounding efforts. Makai Ashton-Langford dished out seven assists (one turnover), and Quinten Post scored 11 points with three blocks in 17 minutes off the bench. The Eagles limited their turnovers by protecting the basketball, and they forced the Bulls into a torture chamber with 13 giveaways, translating into 16 points.
It wasn't pretty, but it was exactly the kind of win BC needed to add cushion to its record. It made a glorious mess of an AAC opponent and it served notice that wins would come over more than just mid-major leagues who threw caution to the wind against power conference foes. It avenged at least one of the losses to URI in a way, and it established a five-win base of operations in time for the ACC to start this weekend against Notre Dame.
Here's some of what we learned from the wins over Columbia and USF.
1) It's up to you, New York, New York.
Like the rest of the Ivy League, Columbia entered this season with a major unknown question mark after not playing last year. Half of its team hadn't played a college basketball game, and the identity of the Lions was more of a blank slate than it was two years ago when they only won six games, lost every game on the road, and struggled to a one-win conference record.
Ranking near the bottom of the KenPom ratings therefore didn't faze the Lions, who beat Binghamton in overtime and entered Conte Forum fresh off pressuring Lehigh in a seven-point loss. They weren't intimidated, and they further used the opportunity of playing after Thanksgiving to catch BC in a bit of a turkey nap after the holiday by shooting 48 percent from the first half.
That they trailed by seven and eventually lost to the Eagles by 13 largely came from two distinct areas: rebounding and 3-point shooting. T.J. Bickerstaff in particular had 17 boards to tie for the fourth-most rebounds in Conte Forum history and the most by an Eagle since Ryan Anderson grabbed the number against Florida International on November 11, 2012 (one month before he had 19 against UNH), and DeMarr Langford Jr. recorded six of seven boards on the offensive end while scoring 15 points.
Brevin Galloway, meanwhile, went 3-for-5 from outside while playing 14 limited minutes, while Columbia shot 8-for-24 from outside, a number that ordinarily wouldn't have been bad if not for BC's 6-for-14, 43 percent first half from beyond the arc. Liam Murphy led all scorers for the Lions with 19 points, but his combination with Geronimo Rubio De La Rosa only went a combined 12-for-26 from the floor. Murphy in particular was 7-for-17 after going 5-for-12 for outside
2) Captain Canada
The Columbia game didn't offer too many talking points outside of the team's overall performance, but the one negative likely assisted in the USF game after James Karnik recorded four of BC's 12 fouls against the Lions. It was the seventh time this season that the physical inside presence was whistled at least three times, and it limited Karnik's potential impact on the game after he recorded six points and five rebounds over 19 minutes of floor time.
Karnik was coming off of a double-double against URI in the game before the Thanksgiving holiday, but the fouls prevented him from continuing that pace against Columbia. Against the Bulls, he stayed off the sheet entirely, and after scoring 12 points with seven rebounds, the Canadian maple had productive minutes for the third time in a four game span.
As the lone returning big man on the BC roster, he is already in a rejuvenated state thanks to a system built around the blue collar, tough style he used to his advantage in his first three seasons at Lehigh.
3) Here Come The Irish
Going 5-3 to start the season is encouraging for Earl Grant, but the temperature at Conte Forum gets turned all the way up on Friday when Notre Dame kicks off the ACC season with a nationally-televised game on ACC Network. It's a tough matchup for the Eagles, and has been particularly tough ever since Notre Dame joined the ACC seven years ago. Notre Dame is 14-2 against BC since the 2013-14 season, but the Eagles earned a split over the last two seasons. Last year, an emotional 94-90 win at Conte Forum ended the month of February after a 10-point loss at the Joyce Center.
The Holy War on Hardwood is a little different in comparison to its gridiron and ice hockey counterparts. While the two teams have faced each other, dating back to the Roberts Center in 1963, the teams played each other sparingly before the Irish joined the Big East in 1995. Rivalries were more entrenched locally with teams like Holy Cross and Providence, though that changed as both BC and Notre Dame followed their national reputations through their old league's growth.
BC's departure from the Big East ended that matchup with a 68-65 loss during the 2004-05 season, but Notre Dame's arrival in 2014 kicked it into a different gear with a 76-73, overtime result. They are now a protected home-and-home matchup that BC plays every year in the conference, and the more recent results revealed a more evenly-matched game than the previous history would indicate. BC takes on the Irish at 6 p.m. on Friday night on ACC Network.
Layup Line: BacK on Top
Gonzaga's two games in Las Vegas last week offered potential previews of what postseason basketball might look like this year, but after beating UCLA by 20 on Tuesday night, the Zags ran into the buzzsaw of an ascending Duke team on Friday. The Blue Devils, undefeated at 6-0 at the time, beat the Zags by three in an instant classic that knocked them out of the No. 1 overall ranking and returned Coach K to the top spot in the national polls for the first time this season.
Reaching No. 1 doesn't mean a whole lot to the national championship race in basketball, but the Blue Devils reached the top spot for the 145th week in program history, most all-time and now 11 more than UCLA's 134 overall weeks. It also closed in on the total number of No. 1 weeks among the other 14 ACC schools and their combined 149 weeks in the top spot.
The record is a testament to head coach Mike Krzyzewski, who is retiring at the end of the season, and Duke enters this week as the only ranked ACC team in the Associated Press top-25, although the stay at the top may be short-lived after the Blue Devils' loss at Ohio State. The next closest team from the conference was North Carolina, which garnered nine votes in the most recent poll, while Virginia Tech, Louisville and Wake Forest all had three or less tallies.
In total, the Big Ten, which took the annual ACC-Big Ten Challenge this week, 8-6, had four teams in the poll. The conference trailed both the Big 12 and the SEC among leagues with ranked teams, with the Big 12 holding three of the top-10 spots and the SEC inserting itself into the conversation with both Kentucky and Arkansas owning the No. 9 and No. 10 spot in the polls.
Players Mentioned
G
/ Men's Basketball
F
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's Basketball
F/C
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's Basketball
F
/ Men's BasketballMen's Basketball: Notre Dame Postgame Press Conference (Jan. 24, 2026)
Sunday, January 25
Men’s Hockey: New Hampshire Press Conference (Head Coach Greg Brown - Jan. 23, 2026)
Saturday, January 24
Men’s Hockey: New Hampshire Press Conference (Dean Letourneau - Jan. 23, 2026)
Saturday, January 24
From the Desk of Blake James | Episode 6
Saturday, January 24
