On Saturday afternoon, Boston College lost a hard-fought affair with #17 Virginia.
Boston College actually came out strong in this one, leading for the entirety of the first half. Virginia — a strong 3-point shooting team — only connected on 2/16 from downtown in the first half; leading scorer Thijs De Ridder only had a couple of buckets in the first 20 minutes. Fred Payne led the way for the Eagles early on, connecting on a tough and-1 trey to race out to a quick 11 points. He was followed by an early nine points for Boden Kapke, who was in the right place at the right time to clean up a couple early misses.
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Virginia employed a full-court press for most of the first half, and their size and length gave the Eagles some difficulties; there were several near-turnovers in the backcourt, but BC managed to reasonably take care of the ball. By half, BC led by five — but with Jayden Hastings in foul trouble.
With Shaw on the court to start the second half, Virginia eschewed their 3-point game and started pounding the rock inside. Shaw was being tasked with defending De Ridder, who has at least 25 pounds on him — and it showed. Meanwhile, the Eagles’ offense lacked rhythm, allowing Virginia to take their first lead of the game less than five minutes into the second half. Donald Hand’s assertive play — drilling a couple midranges and finishing several tough lays at the rack — combined with Hastings’ reintroduction to the lineup helped the Eagles stymy this first UVA push, and BC retook the lead with just over 10 minutes to play. Unfortunately, Hastings picked up his fourth just a few minutes later — despite a really strong stretch of play in the second half, highlighted by a monstrous spike of a block — and without his size, UVA was once again able to pull ahead. A couple clutch shots from Dalin Hall and Chance Mallory sealed the win for the Cavaliers, while the Eagles are left at 2-6 in the ACC and no respite in sight with a trip to Duke up next.