Boston College basketball picked up a big 71-55 win over Florida State Monday night. As BC basketball enters its final four games of the season, followed by the ACC tournament, head coach Earl Grant has set the mindset and expectation for the Eagles.
“We’re two weeks away from going to Brooklyn,” said Grant, following BC’s win over the Seminoles. “My whole approach has been, like, I really didn’t talk about winning this game. I talked about winning behaviors — taking charges, rebounding, making the right decision on the drive against their shot blockers.”
In Grant’s first season as Eagles head coach, he had to replace 11 players from last year’s team — five transfers, six players graduating. With only seven players from last year’s team — only three of which consistently see the court — Grant has led the Eagles to a 10-16 record, as well as a 5-11 conference record.
Compare that to a two-win ACC season under Jim Christian last year, and only one of the wins came under Christian — he was let go with just one ACC win and a 3-13 record mid-February.
Grant has been more focused on the behaviors and attitudes the Eagles possess rather than the result. The first-year coach of the Eagles believes that’s what’s going to lead to BC playing their best basketball come March.
“I’ve been focused more on behaviors than I have the result,” Grant said. “Because I know we’re trying to build a program, I know we’re in pursuit of trying to have a good team, and so we’ve talked about it — we wanna be playing our best basketball possibly that we can play when we get to Brooklyn. The only way you can do that is you keep getting better, you show up every day, you come in and you work at it.”
BC didn’t just beat a team that held first place of the ACC, they dominated FSU following an explosive 11-0 start just over two minutes into the ballgame. Jaeden Zackery led the way with 18 points (4-for-4 from three-point range) and six assists, while James Karnik added a beefy 16 points on 11 boards.
The Eagles will take on NC State Wednesday, on the road, followed by a home slate against Clemson on Saturday. It will be BC’s first matchup against the Wolfpack, while the Eagles took down the Tigers in an effort led by Brevin Galloway in his homecoming game. BC also looks to get healthy, Grant notes, as both T.J. Bickerstaff and DeMarr Langford Jr. are both banged up right now — they missed Monday night’s affair.
“Today was a good step — we got a lot more challenges ahead of us, starting with the game on Wednesday in Raleigh,” said Grant. “We just gotta stay the course — just keep trying to get better and hopefully get healthy.”
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