Guarded Win over Louisville Sets Up Showcase with Carolina

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Jonathan Noel isn't a name that many Boston College basketball fans readily recognize, but his late-game 3-pointer yielded a bench explosion in the final seconds of the 80-62 win over Louisville in the ACC Tournament opener. It was a stamp on a dominant second half that led to BC's fourth win in its last five games.

"We really wanted to be playing our best basketball in March," said Eagles head coach Earl Grant after the win. "We talked about being at our best in March with a chance to advance, so I'm really happy for our players. They found a way to get the win, and we look forward to moving on and preparing for the next."

BC's first round matchup was the second game of the ACC Tournament's first day, but the storyboard for the Eagles began days earlier when center Quinten Post suffered a sprained ankle a minute and a half into of the regular season finale against Georgia Tech. In an instant, a team that many considered for their ACC dark horse turned into a pumpkin, and the favoritism shown to Grant's gritty, defensive style evaporated with the loss of the conference's Most Improved Player.

Nobody knew if Post would play, but the decision was muddied by basketball's sacred month. March, it seemed, could force players to fight through injuries that otherwise would have sidelined them, and, indeed, Post's practice session on Monday night showed the willingness to step on the court if his body would allow for the minutes.

But when he walked out of the locker room in street clothes, the main graphics around the BC-Louisville game shifted and changed to favor a potential upset. Without Post, BC wouldn't readily have the ability to pound the rock into the paint, and the rebounding efforts could conceivably struggle, even against a Louisville team that struggled to consistently stop opposing offenses during the season.

"Injuries have been a beautiful struggle as it pertains to the season," Grant said. "We had a lot of setbacks, up and down, and this is one of those times that a guy was in and out of the roster. So if there was ever a team that had some sort of opportunity to prepare to miss an important player, we would have been one of those teams, just because of what we experienced this year. I knew it would be challenging without him. He's such a good player. But again, this is how guys find a way."

Playing without Post allowed BC to explore and deepen its game plan through the play of its guards, and after fighting through some rust in the first half, the Eagles opened their floodgates with a smaller roster constructed around the play of Makai Ashton-Langford, Jaeden Zackery and Prince Aligbe. All three finished in double figures, but Aligbe and Ashton-Langford scored 10 of their 14 and 16 points, respectively, in the second half, while Zackery scored nine points after halftime to finish with 15.

"We just really simplified a little bit," Grant said. "I thought they were going from man to zone, so I wanted to put the game in the players' hands and say, 'Stop thinking,' so we went motion. We just tried to keep it simple and move the ball. We thought we could post some or drive some with the floor being spread, but I thought we were trying to do too many things offensively in the first half. It kind of stymied us, so I thought it'd be important to put the ball in the guys' hands and trust the players to make the right plays."

Their shooting, which was a combined 15-for-28 from the floor, enabled different areas of the BC game to open its wings, and the re-emergence of T.J. Bickerstaff's rebounding thrust the smaller power forward-slash-center position to the forefront of the Eagles' window crashing. The senior transfer from Drexel had seven boards while scoring eight points, and DeMarr Langford Jr. joined him to lead the Eagles with three grabs on the offensive glass while CJ Penha Jr. came off the bench to rebound five of his six boards on defense.

El Ellis, the second-leading scorer in the ACC, still finished with 16 points to nearly match his season average, but he only shot 5-for-16 from the floor, and Mike James, who scored 21 points against Virginia in the season finale, fouled out with eight points to his ledger after shooting 2-for-5 for a team that failed to crack 20 made field goals as part of a 38 percent night from the floor.

"We thought this was a principle game," Grant said. "You practice every day, so wherever you practice is where you are. We wanted to play in the gaps. We wanted to make things tough, and we wanted to limit opportunities…We did a good job of closing out and taking away the drives, and the players executed the game plan."

It wasn't perfect execution, but BC turned the lights out on the first day's worth of games by simply beating Louisville to the late punch. A lead that hovered around single digits extended towards 20 as the second half drew to a close, and with the Cardinals trying to hang tight in the last three minutes, Aligbe hit two free throws before burying a fast break layup to close out an 8-0 run that built a 17-point lead.

"With Makai and JZ, we count on them to do a lot," Grant said, "and they scored the ball well for us. But we needed other guys. With the evolution of Devin McGlockton, T.J. and CJ and some of the other guys, we felt like playing Prince at small forward. He gave us more limp on the perimeter and gave us a bigger guy, and obviously he did a really good job using his size to his advantage to finish at the rim."

With the win in tow, BC now advances to the Second Round to meet seventh-seeded North Carolina on Wednesday night. Led by All-ACC First Team center Armando Bacot, the Tar Heels were last year's national runner up and this year's preseason No. 1 team in the nation before slipping to 19-12 during the season. A bubble team for the NCAA Tournament, they now resemble last year's Wake Forest team that needed a win over the Eagles to potentially advance to the national bracket.

"We just need to believe in each other," Grant said. "Believe in what we do. We are what we repeatedly do. This is a tournament where the winner gets a big trophy, and so we just want to stay together and play to our standards and trust in each other - enjoy what we're doing and really try to support each other."

BC and North Carolina tip-off at 7 p.m. on Wednesday night from the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina. The game will be broadcast on ESPN2 with radio coverage available through the Boston College Sports Network from Learfield.

Guarded Win over Louisville Sets Up Showcase with Carolina

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Players Mentioned

Prince Aligbe

Makai Ashton-Langford

T.J. Bickerstaff

DeMarr Langford Jr.

Devin McGlockton

Jonathan Noel

CJ Penha Jr.

Quinten Post

Jaeden Zackery