No. 6 Virginia goes cold, Boston College wins 63-48

BOSTON (AP) — With Boston College clutching adouble-digit lead over No. 6 Virginia late in the second half, theConte Forum security staff huddled in a tunnel just off the courtto prepare for the onslaught of fans that was all butinevitable.

The crowd knew. The Virginia players knew. Everyone in thebuilding knew the Eagles were on the verge of the biggest win ofcoach Earl Grant’s tenure.

“I think they sensed, ‘Boy, I think we’re going to get theseguys,’” Virginia coach Tony Bennett said after BC beat thecold-shooting Cavaliers 63-48 on Wednesday night to send thesellout crowd streaming onto the court in celebration.

“As this thing wore on, you could feel the crowd get into it,”said Bennett, whose team shot a season-low 32% from the fieldagainst the BC defense. “They put us on our heels. It was a lot forsome of our guys. We’ve got to learn from that, because of whatwe’ve got coming up.”

Makai Ashton-Langford scored 16 points and Jaeden Zackery hadall 12 of his points in the second half for BC (14-15, 8-10Atlantic Coast Conference). It was the Eagles’ third win over aranked team this season, but the first over one in the top 10 sincebeating top-ranked Duke in 2017.

“I think we’re moving in the right direction,” said Grant, whois in his second year since moving to Chestnut Hill from theCollege of Charleston. “I thought the night was a great test. Wewere excited about the challenge; we were excited going into it. Weknew it would be hard, but we wanted to see what we were.”

Jayden Gardner scored 16 points for Virginia (21-5, 13-4), whichfell into a second-place tie with Pittsburgh in the ACC, one-halfgame behind Miami. The Cavaliers, who had been as high as No. 2 inthe AP Top 25, had won four in a row and 11 of their previous 12games.

Armaan Franklin, the Cavaliers’ leading scorer, and fellow guardReece Beekman combined to go 4 of 18 from the field and miss allsix of their 3-point tries. Virginia finished 4 of 21 (19%) frombeyond the arc.

The Cavaliers also shot 67% from the free-throw line, includingback-to-back misses by Ryan Dunn that earned all 7,000 inattendance a free order of cheesy bacon fries.

That was all the encouragement the crowd needed.

And the players fed off it, too.

“The program is going up,” Zackery said. “Coming in againstranked teams, we feel like that motivates us more because,honestly, at that point, we don’t have anything to lose. They’rethe ones that are ranked. We just come in, play our best.”

Virginia led early before BC took the lead for good midwaythrough the first half, using an 11-2 run to open a 26-17advantage. The Eagles made it a 13-point game early in thesecond.

Gardner hit back-to-back baskets midway through the second tomake it 44-37, but Isaac McKneely missed a 3-pointer that couldhave made it a four-point game. Zackery responded by driving thelane, bouncing off a defender and rolling it in off the rim beforegiving a double-armed flex in celebration.

Then, after Kihei Clark missed a layup, Zackery hit a 3-pointerto give BC a 49-37 lead, earning a congratulatory shoulder-squeezefrom big man Quinten Post. Bennett called timeout, but theCavaliers never again got within single digits.

BIG PICTURE

Virginia had beaten Boston College four times in a row andneeded only to keep moving up to earn a No. 1 seed in the NCAAtournament. The setback against a sub-.500 team will bedamaging.

Boston College had already beaten Virginia Tech and Clemson thisseason when they were ranked. The Eagles haven’t beaten threeranked teams in a season since 2008-09.

UP NEXT

Virginia: At North Carolina on Saturday.

Boston College: At Wake Forest on Tuesday.