Senior Night didn’t go the way that the Boston College men’s basketball team might have liked. Pittsburgh made it rain threes in Conte Forum, and the Panthers left with an easy 90-65 win. Pitt sank 16 threes and shot over 53% from beyond the arc, making life very difficult for the Eagles.
Pitt got off to a hot start, taking a 12-5 lead after making four three-pointers in the first three minutes. They continued their hot shooting and with 14:28 left in the half, Blake Hinson converted an and-one to put the Panthers up 18-9 after the first TV timeout.
Hinson hit another three, Pitt’s sixth of the game, less than a minute later to put his team up 21-9. Jaeden Zackery and Quinten Post both made threes over the next two minutes to cut the deficit to eight points. BC trailed by just four, 23-19, at the ten minute mark after Post made two-straight layups. Both teams went back-and-forth until the next TV timeout, but Pitt still led. 30-23, with 7:43 remaining.
But with Post on the bench, BC’s offense struggled to find its footing and couldn’t score until Post re-entered the game and made a jumper with 5:12 left. At that point, BC trailed by 10 points, 35-25, as Pitt continued to shoot the ball well.
After a timeout with 3:21 left in the half, the Panthers made two layups to extend their lead to 43-27, their largest of the game. Post broke BC’s scoring drought with a layup, but the Eagles went into the intermission down 47-32.
BC looked confused and sluggish at times in the first half, and Pitt made eight of their 16 threes in the period, allowing the Panthers to build a comfortable lead. Post accounted for more than half of BC’s total points with 17, a figure that led all scorers. BC’s next leading scorer was Zackery who had five points and two assists. Pitt shot over 54% from the field and had three fewer turnovers than the Eagles at halftime.
Pitt’s first bucket of the second half was another three-pointer that put them up 50-34. But neither team shot well to begin the final half, but the Panthers made their tenth three of the game with 14:43 left in the game and led by a score of 53-37.
Post put the team on his back for the next few minutes, scoring six straight points to cut into the Pitt deficit. But the Panthers’ offense did not relent and Hinson hit the team’s 13th three with 9:12 to go in the game. Bub Carrington made his fifth three of the contest and Pitt’s 14th with 8:01 left to extend Pitt’s lead to 20 points. Carrington continued his lights out shooting and hit two more shots from beyond the arc over the next few minutes.
After Post made a three, the Eagles were down by 23 points, 78-55, with 5:45 left in the game. But Pitt continued to add to its lead and went on a quick 6-2 run, putting the Panthers up 84-57 with 3:37 left in the game. With 1:06 left in the game, Quinten Post went to the bench and Conte Forum gave him a well deserved standing ovation. In the closing seconds, senior walk-on Abe Atiyeh hit a three-pointer, much to the delight of his teammates.
Ultimately, it just wasn’t BC’s day and they dropped the game by a score of 90-65. Post had a monster game though, putting up a double-double with 30 points, 12 boards, and two assists. The Eagles will travel to Coral Gables to take on the Miami Hurricanes on Wednesday.