Boston College students flooded to Conte Forum on Saturday afternoon, perhaps hoping for a repeat of the court-storming upset the Eagles pulled off back in February 2023. That’s not what they got.
BC men’s basketball (9–12, 2–6 Atlantic Coast) delivered a nail-biter, but No. 17 Virginia (18–3, 7–2) ultimately came out on top 73–66 as simple mistakes plagued the Eagles in big ways—missed free throws and a momentum-killing over-and-back call sitting at the top of the list.
“We’re still gonna be disappointed we lost—we’re not gonna be like, ‘We lost by six to the No. [17] team in the country.’” Donald Hand Jr. said. “We wanted to win.”
Missed free throws plagued the Eagles throughout, but that trend got especially bad in the second half, when those points became game-deciding as the teams battled for slim leads. BC finished 15 of 26 from the line.
“In a possession game like that, when the game is so close and no team can separate, all it takes is a 90-second to a two-minute patch that can flip the game,” BC head coach Earl Grant said.
Jayden Hastings and Donald Hand Jr. almost single-handedly kept BC in the game in the second half, combining for 22 points on 7-for-11 shooting. Hand finished with a game-high 20 points.
Virginia got its first lead of the game 4:30 into the second half when Sam Lewis finished at the rim, drawing a foul on Caleb Steger and sinking the ensuing free throw to put his team up 41–38. But Hand responded on the other end with a fadeaway jumper, and sank a couple of bonus free throws to cut Virginia’s lead to 48-43 shortly after.
Hand facilitated a five-point sequence that cut Virginia’s lead to 50–49 with 11:32 to play, including a picture-perfect feed under the rim to Hastings. Hand looked like he would go for an up-and-under layup of his own, but flipped it to Hastings at the last second for an easy two.
The two connected again 31 seconds later, when Hand’s feed to Hastings ended in an and-one bucket that put BC up 52–50. Thijs De Ridder did what he did throughout the second half, though, using his body to get position in the paint then flipping a shot over Kapke’s head to tie the game again.
“They’re tough to score on—they really are,” Virginia head coach Ryan Odom said of BC. “They gave us everything, certainly, that we could handle today.”
Virginia slowly pulled away with plays like that, building a six-point lead with 2:36 to play. BC couldn’t come back from that, and didn’t score another field goal until there were just 29 seconds on the clock.
“In the second half, we couldn’t sustain it, and some of it had to do with Virginia,” Grant said. “They tightened up their pressure, they really did a good job of trying to wear our guards down.”
Virginia went into the game ranked eighth in the country in offensive rebounding, averaging just over 14 per game. The Cavaliers pulled down nine in the first half, scoring eight second-chance points. They ended with 14 offensive boards and seven steals, swiping extra possessions from BC’s fingertips.
Though neither team shot the ball well from three, Virginia shot 52 percent from the field in the second half—improved from its 36 percent in the first half—and pulled away late to avoid the upset in Conte.
“We needed to get some stops, we just didn’t get them,” Grant said. “We had a good plan. We got better. We didn’t win, but we got better.”