The Eagles (7-14) rallied from a 10-point deficit with six minutes left in regulation before scoring the first six points in overtime and going on to win
Demar Langford scored 19 points, Quinton Post 17 and 13th seed Boston College beat fifth seed Wake Forest 82-77 in the second round of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament on Wednesday.
The Eagles (7–14) rallied from a 10-point deficit with six minutes remaining in regulation before securing the first six points in overtime and going on to win.
It is the first time BC have won two tournament games since 2018, but not without some adversities, including a double-digit deficit, which came after they took the most lead.
"We have a lot of endurance," said BC coach Earl Grant. "We talked, hey look, if you're going to climb the top of the hill at some point there's going to be a giant coming your way and you're going to have to try to kill him. We knew it was going to be tough." ..but we executed and played together."
BC's Brevin Galloway hit a 3-pointer to break a tie and ran 14-1 with 2:35 in regulation. He missed a tough layoff against two defenders as he went into the cordon at the end of regulation.
Jaden Zachery hits a 3-pointer to open overtime, Makai Ashton-Langford chases down with a floater and Zachary adds a free throw. A basket of ACC Player of the Year three took BC's lead to 1:20, but a short Langford jumper and two Galloway free throws took it to a seven-point lead with 27 seconds to go. Damari Monsanto hit a 40-foot 3-pointer, but after a Zachary free throw with 7.5 seconds remaining, Deacons's court-length inbound pass went out of bounds.
BC, who lost 30 to Damon Deacon in the regular season, went on to face Miami, who defeated the Eagles 81–70 on March 2. But Grant sees a different team from the Eagles having had their regular-season struggles.
Grant said, "It's your core parts. ... It's something we talk about, something that you practice and something you do." "And then when you start making kids believe what we are, the inner parts showed up. All those things we went through this year, the overtime losses, the really hard losses and the hard, hard wins digging us up Padi, (The Prayas) was an accumulation of what we saw this season."
Ashton-Langford added 13 points, Zachary 12 and Galloway 11 for the Eagles, who shot 50% and made 24 of 34 free throws.
Jake Laravia scored 21 points, Williams 17 and Dallas Walton 10, with Monsanto adding 12 on four 3-pointers for the Deacons (23–9), who now have at least one point about NCAA Tournament bidding opportunities. There is uncertainty.
The Eagles led almost all of the first half and spent most of the opening minutes of the second half before a field-goal drought of more than eight minutes gave them the lead. He remained in the game, making 12 of 13 free throws during that shooting slump.