Eagles Right At Home In First Round Win

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BROOKLYN — New York City’s modern-day is a touristy haven. The city itself is closely associated with its Manhattan borough and the landmarks located minutes from the bright lights emanating from Times Square. It plays into postcard pictures showing the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, and Central Park. It’s built around Broadway, and the vendors offering trinkets and memories are more for visitors who walk and stop than they are for the natives who weave through their inherent traffic.

That New York resembles nothing of the tougher era that built the city through the 20th century, but the grittier reputation still exists outside the stops to the M&M’s Store located next to the Times Square Gift Shop. People who live in the boroughs of the Bronx or Brooklyn know what that means and how they had to work harder, how life forced them to absorb blows to achieve greatness. They built an edge that found its way to their culture, and it was often seen in both their music and their sports.

Basketball in particular owned the New York vibe. The “City Game” held its place among the neighborhoods, and the pure talent emerging from the City transformed the game. It produced Lew Alcindor and Dr. J, Connie Hawkins, and Kenny Anderson. Brooklyn – in all its community wonder – was the birthplace of Michael Jordan and the proving ground for Stephon Marbury, Bernard King, Lenny Wilkins, Mark Jackson, and Chris Mullin.

Grittiness was embedded in the borough, and as the ACC descended on the Barclays Center this week, it became immediately clear that the Northeast would have its moment to compete with the Tobacco Road blue bloods. On Tuesday, the First Round kicked off with Boston College and Pittsburgh engaging in a bare-knuckle basketball game that perfectly suited both the Eagles and their NYC hosts in a 66-46 win.

“We play a physical style,” said head coach Earl Grant. “We like to defend and rebound and take care of the ball. I thought Pitt did a better job on the offensive glass, but we made some adjustments to do what we needed to do after the first 10 minutes. That’s one of our standards in what we want to do, and I think we hit our number.”

This year marked the ACC’s first return to New York City since 2018, but a decided parity existed as the league returned to the borough this season. Wins by the bottom six seeds were a big reason why Virginia Tech and Wake Forest missed out on double-bye opportunities in the Quarterfinal round, and both BC and Pittsburgh defeated a team in the top four with decisive performances.

The irony, of course, was that both played each other on Tuesday, thereby guaranteeing one wouldn’t advance to the Second Round, but this game truly indoctrinated the ACC to the Northeast way of life in the early goings when Pitt forward John Hugley jockeyed for position alongside BC’s Quinten Post and James Karnik. They battered each other as Jaeden Zackery and others slipped behind the defensive backline, though the guards slashed to the basket and dove for loose balls at their own peril.

The battles resulted in Hugley absorbing two fouls in the first half, which in turn caused Pitt to unravel against BC’s bruising defense. The unrelenting pressure kept the Panthers without a field goal for over 11 minutes and sprung a 25-3 run that pushed the Eagles ahead by 21 as the game wore on.

The emotion compounded Pitt’s issues after the Panthers took both a flagrant and a technical foul near the start of the second half, but playing into the Eagles’ strengths kept the pressure on Hugley, who still finished with 15 points and eight rebounds on 7-of-12 shooting. He was one of three Panthers in double figures but lacked the free throws that existed when he shot 15-of-20 from the line in the team’s first meeting.

BC likewise finished with three players in double figures but balanced the scoring across three others who had nine or eight points. James Karnik scored a team-high 13 points by shooting 6-for-8 and was matched mostly by Post, who had 11 points, three rebounds, two steals, and a block in his 21 minutes. DeMarr Langford Jr., meanwhile, led the effort from the backcourt by scoring 12 points and five rebounds, while the balance came from Zackery, Ashton-Langford, and Brevin Galloway, who scored eight, nine, and nine, respectively.

“We knew Hugley was going to be the motor for their team,” Langford said. “Our game plan was to double him and make someone else make a play.”

“He started off the game playing really well, being physical,” Post said, “and he made some jump shots, but we said that we would live with the jump shots. Then [the defense] tried to help James and me as much as possible. We did a better job after the first few minutes, and while he’s a great player, we did a decent job of holding him down after that.”

The win creates a path forward for a dangerous Eagles team in a league that won’t receive its typical eight or nine bids. Its next opponent, Wake Forest, is a team facing a must-win situation to solidify its own NCAA Tournament viability while other seeds like No. 7 Virginia Tech need to prove it deserves a slot in Sunday’s selection. A third team like Virginia could emerge if Wake Forest falters, but the Cavaliers likely need additional help in the form of multiple tournament wins.

All of this adds a new flair to Wednesday’s mid-afternoon tip between the Eagles and Demon Deacons. Their first meeting fizzled after the Tobacco Road team blew BC out of its building, but the Eagles have since gained confidence from the wins over Florida State and N.C. State. They weren’t pushovers in the losses to Clemson or Georgia Tech, and even the late game against Miami did nothing to disperse the notion that BC could ruin someone’s postseason chances at the building at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush.

There is some irony involved. The Barclays Center is minutes away from a playground court named after the Notorious B.I.G., and a ride down Flatbush Avenue offers the option of returning to Manhattan’s touristy trappings. It’s pretty easy to cross the East River to get to Zuccotti Park, City Hall, or Battery Park, and all of those places are great experiences everyone should attend at least once during their trip to New York City.

Boston College has a huge alumni base in New York City and this tournament is in its own home market compared to the Greensboro Coliseum. A team from North Carolina awaits in the Second Round on Wednesday, and maybe, just maybe, a Northeast team that won its first game by soaking in the rough-and-tumble atmosphere- the concrete jungle where dreams are made of – can continue to channel the grittiness of players made to play in the borough of Brooklyn.

Boston College and Wake Forest tip-off at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn with television coverage available on ESPN2.