BC can’t stretch its legs
Tired Eagles out of gas in ACC
NEW YORK — Tired legs and all, the Boston College basketball team didn’t go down without a fight.
Down by 15 in the second half against Clemson and appearing to be out of gas while playing a third game in as many days, the Eagles found their second wind to cut the deficit to a single basket with just under six minutes to play in their ACC tournament quarterfinal yesterday at Barclays Center.
But while the hearts and the minds were willing, BC’s legs finally gave out down the stretch as the fourth-seeded Tigers re- gained control and pulled away for a 90-82 victory.
“I thought we fought to the very end,” BC coach Jim Christian said. “Every time they got away from us a little bit, we fought back and cut it. There’s a lot of us to build off. I don’t think we’re done playing, so we’re excited about continuing to play.”
At 19-15 with seven regular- season ACC wins and two more in Brooklyn, the Eagles have put themselves in line for an NIT bid. That’s a major step forward for a program
that didn’t win a conference game just two years ago.
Junior guard Jerome Robinson called this season a small step toward rebuilding the program to its past glory.
It almost became an even bigger leap after Robinson and Ky Bowman led an improbable comeback that began with an 8-0 run and put a major dent in a Clemson advantage that had grown to 55-40 with 13:06 to play.
With Robinson and Bowman scoring 14 of their team’s points in a row during one stretch, BC got to within three on a 3-pointer by Bowman. Then after a pair of free throws by the Tigers’ Elijah Thomas, Robinson also hit a longrange jumper to cut the deficit to 63-61.
“It’s tough playing three games in three days,” Robinson said. “(But) it’s what we wanted and I think we did well. The spark for that run was just our intensity. We knew we had to pick it up on defense, get a couple of stops and get a couple of easy baskets. We cut it down, but we ended up coming up short.”
The Eagles’ rally hit the wall abruptly.
Shelton Mitchell hit a 3-pointer from the right corner to slow BC’s momentum before reserve guard Anthony Oliver followed with his third 3-pointer of the game to help the Tigers (22-10) rebuild a double-digit lead.
A redshirt freshman, Oliver had made just four 3-pointers all season before this game. Mitchell finished with 21 points while Gabe Devoe led Clemson with 25.
“They just kept scoring,” Robinson said. “We ended up not getting a couple stops late in the stretch. They got a couple tough baskets and we ended up missing a couple open 3’s that I thought we could have hit. It’s just the way the game goes sometimes.”
Despite some early shooting woes and combining for only seven firsthalf points, Bowman and Robinson still ended up accounting for more than half of BC’s offense.
Bowman came on late to score 23 before fouling out. Robinson added 20 while Jordan Chatman contributed 15, most of which came during the opening 20 minutes.
Chatman’s shooting during the final four minutes of the half helped keep the Eagles in contention. Clemson answered a 12-3 Eagles’ run to start the game with a stretch in which it made seven straight shots while holding BC scoreless.
Clemson, however, finally gained some separation by scoring nine of the first 10 points to start the second half and put the Eagles into a hole from which they couldn’t escape. Even though BC wasn’t able to advance to its first tournament semifinal since 2007, Christian was anything but discouraged.
“I think the last two weeks of the season, we really improved, just mentally improved,” Christian said. “You don’t know where a winning culture is going to start and where it’s going to grow from, but in the last two weeks . . . the culture has completely changed.”