Earl Grant postgame quotes after win over Wake Forest
Did this win save Earl Grant?
Probably not, but the thing you’ve got to give him – and I’m pretty sure I’ve said this a couple times recently – is that the team does play solid defense night in and night out. Unfortunately, the offense has just been a disaster most nights.
After a 1-15 start from three in the first half, BC got hot from beyond the arc early in the second half, built a big enough lead, nearly gagged it away in the final seconds and then got a miracle put back from Aidan Shaw to keep faint ACC postseason hopes alive.
BC is in Miami on Saturday afternoon (2:00 p.m.) before a 9:00 p.m. tip at Virginia Tech on Tuesday. The season finale – and possibly end of another era for the program – is Saturday March 7 against Notre Dame (noon).
Here’s what stood out from Grant’s postgame press conference after the 68-67 win…
Opening thoughts
“Yeah, really happy for our players, really happy for our fans. We were supposed to play this game (Tuesday) and I was a little worried, would everybody realize we changed it to the next day? But, just happy we were able to win the game, a close game, which, it’s interesting we’ve been in so many close games. But, I’m glad we were able to execute at the end and find a way to get a win.”
On what he thinks was different down the stretch, allowing BC to close out a game
“It’s a possession game. So, obviously, when you go through a lot of close losses, that’s a lot of pain. That’s a lot of disappointment. It really tests your character and the people in your locker room…I thought our players, the way they’ve handled the adversity we’ve been through has been really high-level. Their energy, their spirit and their high-character. They deserved to win tonight. We had Donald Hand back, first game back in like five games. So, his rhythm, we were trying to figure out how to get him back in rhythm, make sure he’s healthy and can play, so the next game he can build on what he did tonight.
“But, I just thought with the three guards, we got to a point where we were defending well in the second half and we were really sharing the ball on offense. We were trying to attack the basket more. I thought we shot too many threes early in the first half…just happy for the guys. Thankful. Thank God we moved the game to Wednesday. We had one more day to prepare and so, yeah, we’ve got four games (left) coming into this one and we want to try and finish strong with a four-game season.”
On if the final play was ‘the play’ out of the huddle & if there was a reminder from staff to crash the glass
“Well, it’s a possession game. We’ve been in so many possession games. So, we know we need to possess the ball in a possession game. So, we’ve been forced to work on late game this year probably more than any other team I’ve coached. So, the last five practices, we always have a segment where we can go through some of these scenarios. Sometimes we lose, sometimes we win. But, you know, when Juke Harris – you know, he had 38 points…but, I thought the play we ran, we ran it so many times over the last five games and I thought Fred…we wanted him to force the issue at the rim for a layup or a foul. We had our two bigs crashing the glass, so…”
On what he saw from Hand Jr. & him reaching 1,000 points
“Proud of him for that. All 1,000 at Boston College. He’s a Boston College guy. That’s No. 1. When he’s 40 years old, he’ll realize how special that is, to be a Boston College guy. He has his education, played three years here, 1,000 points and he’s got a place to call home for the rest of his life. So, really happy for him. It was nice to have him back, but again, he hadn’t played in five games. He practiced maybe once or twice. So, now that we have a chance to have him practice with a couple more practices, that will set him up to go build on what he did tonight and help us finish the season strong.”
On the future and what this win meant to him
“I feel great. Like, I’ve been here for give years. My job was to come rebuild the program. That’s what I did and we did great. We had great success, great wins. And now, we navigating through a storm. It’s a different landscape. So, we trying to figure out how do we win in this landscape. It’s simple. I clearly see what it is. Again, we lost a lot of close games this year, so I aways kick myself and look in the mirror like, ‘how can I help the team be better? What should I do in these situations?’ So, I think I’ve gotten better. I’m a better coach today than I was six years ago. I’ve been forced to be a better coach. And so, yeah, I feel great. I love BC. I love our players. I think we’ve built the program. We didn’t have these facilities when I got here, it was nothing like this. We hadn’t been in the postseason before I got here. We got that. Now, we just trying to navigate through some very tough times as it pertains to, how does BC navigate this climate? How do we become winners?
“Our job is to try and win this year, finish the season strong, see what that looks like and then take the information we got and say ‘ok, how do we take the next step? How do we get BC back where it belongs?’ So, yeah, I feel great. Nothing for me to feel bad about. We built it up and right now, we trying to navigate through the storm.”
