In a primetime showdown on Saturday night, Boston College was dominated 88-63 by the Duke Blue Devils.
Elijah Strong was unexpectedly in street clothes during warmups, and he missed the contest – an absence that no doubt hurt the Eagles. Nevertheless, Boston College controlled the tip, and Chad Venning got the Eagles off to a quick start with six straight points – all in the paint. Duke countered with an easy two for freshman phenom Cooper Flagg and a banked Tyrese Proctor triple, but Boston College jumped out to an early 13-7 lead at the first media timeout after an excellent threaded pass from Brown to find the cutting Beadle.
Grant quickly pulled Venning after his first personal, and his replacement in Jayden Hastings made his presence known with an easy bucket on one end and a nice stuff on the other. BC suffered a major scare seconds later as Donald Hand came down hard and was slow to get up, forcing him to the bench. The Eagles were undeterred, however, with Kelley finding Hastings underneath with a beautiful feed for an easy two. At the second media timeout, BC led by 5 despite a thunderous Maluach slam and a Flagrant I foul on Jayden Hastings.
Donald Hand returned to the game just after the 9 minute mark to the collective sigh of Boston College fans, but Duke took their first lead of the game on a Proctor 3. Chad Venning – who had given up inside position on Maluach a couple of times – got back in the scoring column with some clean footwork to spin free of his man to the cup. Tellingly, Duke threw a double at the experienced big man, but Chas Kelley responded by attacking the rack himself and scoring an and-1 bucket. He couldn’t hit the free throw, and Tyrese Proctor followed up the missed opportunity by canning another triple to give the Blue Devils their biggest lead of the night so far at the 5:53 mark of the first half. They were able to extend that lead via Cooper Flag free throws, who found himself attacking Ched Venning – a clear mismatch. Without Roger McFarlane on the floor – the only healthy forward(!) BC dressed tonight – the Eagle’s defense struggled mightily, as Flagg was able to capitalize against BC’s undersized guards or slower bigs. Even once he returned, Flagg was having his way attacking the hoop. Dion Brown did his best to answer, showing some rare aggression with a couple sweet post moves to find the rack, but Duke took a 6 point lead to the break.
Duke opened the second half by burning a late Eagles rotation and pushing their lead to 8 and then 10. Flagg just simply cooked McFarlane, who then was assessed a flagrant I for elbowing Flagg. Venning, however, refused to let BC go quietly. He grabbed a physical offensive board and scored the putback before attacking Maluach for an and-1 bucket, sending the Duke freshman to the bench with 4 personals. At the other end, Sion James scored an answering and-1 against Chas Kelley, pushing the Duke lead to 11. Eagles tried to throw Duke off their game with a bit of a zone look, but Flagg knifed through with a massive tomahawk slam. Grant brought Luka Toews and Fred Payne into the game to try and spark a comeback, but the Eagles had no semblance of momentum at the under-12 media timeout trailing 58-43. It only got worse after the timeout, as Proctor connected on another and-1 while BC’s offense completely stalled out. The Blue Devil lead hit 20 at the 10:55 mark and did not look back. BC drew as close as 18, but the Blue Devils cruised for the last quarter of the game in an 88-63 route.