Eagles avoid disaster with win over FDU

Facing FDU at home on Monday night, BC played like a team that hadn’t seen game action in 12 days.

The Eagles trailed their three-win opponent 33-25 at halftime and by as many as 14 early on. But, down the stretch, BC found a way to make enough shots and free throws to come away with a 71-62 win.

Luka Toews led the way with 21 points. Donald hand added 13 (9-12 from the free throw line), Fred Payne had 11 and Caleb Steger had 12. Boden Kapke chipped in 10. BC shot 44% from the field (24-55), but just 10-30 from three. The Eagles also missed 11 free throws (14-25) and had seven turnovers. In the first half, BC was just 7-28 and 2-13 from three. FDU attempted 20 three pointers in the first 20 minutes, hitting eight of them.

Tied 52-52 with just under eight minutes left, Toews, Payne and Hand Jr. helped close things out as FDU also went a bit cold in the closing minutes.

BC hosts Le Monye on Sunday before starting ACC play against Georgia Tech on the road January 3. Here’s what stood out from Earl Grant postgame:

On a better start the first 5 minutes, but then a poor rest of the first half

“You know, it’s disappointing. Tale of two halves. Obviously, proud of the guys showing the character, doing what they needed to do, because we got ourself in a tough situation we had to fight out of. The first half…we’ve been off for 11 days. I thought we’d actually come out with a lot of energy because we were off, but we were off 11 days. It’s hard to win. They made eight threes in the first half. I thought we contested some. We took the threes away. In the first half, they had 33 points. It felt like we weren’t guarding at a high level because they were making their threes, but we weren’t scoring either…we had 24 points, but 33 points in a half with a team making eight threes…a team that makes eight threes at half should have 45 points.

“But, second half, we just cleaned some things up and had some players show up and play big basketball. Caleb Steger made some big shots. Luka Toews had a career high. Glad the guys were able to find a way to win.”

On finding a routine during the holidays

“It’s hard. I even thought about calling some of the football coaches who got the long break for the bowl games and stuff, just, ‘hey what are you doing?’ We had 11 days. That’s a long time. We had exams. We tried to practice. We tried to get some rest, skill and develop. So, you kept looking at the calendar like, ‘man, we’ve got four more days before our next game.’ It seemed like it took forever to get back to this moment. Glad we won. Glad we showed so much character in the second half and looking forward to seeing what we look like when we put two halves together.”

On working around Christmas with a game on Sunday

“Same thing. Go home, enjoy your family and then you come back and you’ve got two days to prepare. That’s what most of the guys will do.”

On pressing against FDU with smaller players

“It’s something that we’ve had a lot of success with over the years. It’s something we’ve been doing 18 years. Whether it be previous schools, or as an assistant at different places, we believe in it. We like our man-to-man, but I thought tonight we needed to make a change. Our backs were against the wall. Nobody goes into the game anticipating their back being against the wall, but it was. So, when you get in that situation, you’ve got to figure out what to do. I think we made a crucial change. We were pressing a lot of different ways. We picked up. We got some deflections, got them a little bit tentative and it just changed the game. It changed the game for us.”

On what the team can take from this win when it comes to closing out games

“I thought there was a couple things. First of all, again, the thing that excites me is it’s a 40-minute game and we haven’t played a full 40 minutes. It’s almost impossible to play a full 40-minutes, that’s almost a perfect night. But, you can play 36, 35, 37. I felt like we played maybe 28 good minutes tonight, 29 good minutes. So, there’s an opportunity for growth to close that gap and then we become really dangerous if we can close that gap. So, that’s exciting, right? Getting close to the 40.

“Late game tonight, I looked up at the scoreboard and it was a four point game with five minutes to go. We told the guys ‘we’ve been here before.’ So, we’ve got to find a way to win these possessions. I thought we defended well. We had maybe one breakdown, one switch where they got a layup. But, we defended well and we made shots. To be honest with you, that’s the difference. It’s a make, miss game. I thought Luka and Caleb Steger, they made two crucial shots too. That was a big part of us closing the game.”