Everything Earl Grant said following 2nd straight ACC win
Chase Forte’s three with 1:54 left tied the game at 62 against Pitt on Wednesday night. Then, Boden Kapke drained a three of his own moments later to put the Eagles up by three.
BC made it interesting when they turned the ball over on an inbounds with eight seconds left, but the Panthers missed a three at the buzzer, allowing the Eagles to escape with their second straight ACC win.
BC is now 9-10 overall and 2-4 in the conference. Kapke had a career high 19 points in the win.
Here’s everything head coach Earl Grant had to say postgame:
Opening thoughts
“Proud of the players, happy for our fans. Winning is fun. Winning is hard. We found a way to win the game, make the right plays, made some stops coming down the stretch. So, hopefully we’ll take what we learned from tonight and try to continue to improve. I thought we won the game without playing our best, so that’s a good sign. But, now we can get back to the woodshed and keep working.”
On the confidence building with two late game wins after so many losses in the final minutes
“We’ve been through a lot, but that’s a journey. That’s a season. That’s why a season is a duration, a journey is a duration. As long as you can continue to move your feet in the right direction, stay together as a group and you continue to work work with enthusiasm and continue to look yourself in the mirror and try to figure out how you can get better and not point fingers, then you can play your best baketball in March. So, We’ve been through a lot and I’m trying to stay present. So, I don’t want to think about those old games. I’ve tried not…we’ve been in maybe seven games like this one. There’s been a lot of nail biters. Just happy we’ve been able to get over the hump. Guys are practicing hard, really trying to believe in what we’re doing and hopefully we can build on it and keep going.”
On the synergy between the front court and back court growing
“Yeah, I mean, something myself and my staff, we’re learning through all of this. When you coach for 30 years. You’re so used to have nine returners, having senior leadership and all that stuff. Now, so you’ve got to give the players credit. You say ‘alright, we’ve got eight new guys to campus, we’ve got a season starting in two months. Nobody knows each other’. You’ve got different terminology, a different system. So, I think what we’re seeing, I hope, is that now that we’ve been together and been through some adversity and some successes, we’re starting to learn things and we’re getting closer as a team. We starting to understand what we’re trying to do offensively and execute a little better, and then playing tough on defense. It’s just a new thing we’re trying to adjust to with so many new guys every year.”
On how often the play with Kapke (go ahead 3) works in practice
“You know, the particular play we ran is something we’re usually running during the duration of the game, not late game. We had run a couple things in the last three minutes that we were trying to get done. Chase Forte had some success. But, that play we ran wasn’t a late game play. It was just something we run. We was going to Boden as the first option and he made a good decision because Fred (Payne’s) man helped. He was unselfish, he got it to Fred and Fred drove it to the basket. He was unselfish and got it back to Boden. Just happy we were able to be that unselfish and take the right shot instead of forcing the right one.”
On beating Pitt’s zone
“The reason it was tough is they were really long. They had 6-7 out there, 6-10, 6-8, you know, they were long. So, the guy at the top was really in the passing lanes. You had to be smart with the ball. You had to protect the ball as you pass it, they were in the passing lanes. Once we made a big shot, I think we had one big shot against it. A team that doesn’t play zone a lot, usually doesn’t want to be in zone. But, we actually talked about it in practice. If we’re up or the game is tight, they’re going to go zone. We’ve got to be ready. We made a big shot in the zone and then they went away from it and went back to man.”
How to build off the 2 game win streak
“I think the way you do it is watch the film, look at the things you did well and praise them for it. Look at the things that wasn’t up to our standard and challenge them about it. And then, get back to practice (Thursday), we practice (Thursday). We play Saturday. We’ve got to travel, right? We practice tomorrow. There’s no rest for the weary. But, you get back in the gym and you practice. You practice hard. You practice smart and you try to get better.”
On the emergence of Kapke offensively
“He’s kind of what we envisioned. You don’t want to compare him to Quinten Post. A lot of people try and compare them. But, we envisioned a high-character person that visited Boston College out of high school, went somewhere else, we followed him. He was having a pretty good career. Not great, but pretty good. We a developmental program, so we said ‘maybe we can have this guy for two years. If we have him for two years based on our development, we got a stud.’ So, he’s starting to come into his own as an inside out threat and hopefully we can continue to help him keep his confidence going in the right direction.”
On celebrating postgame
“Didn’t have a live Panther. Didn’t think about squeezing the Orange (in the locker room after Syracuse), but when I walked in someone tossed one at me and said ‘you gotta do something with it.’ So, I did something with it.
(Here’s the full postgame press conference with players as well)
