It wasn’t pretty and it took BC fouling out all of their big men, but the Irish again did what they needed to do to come away with another ACC win
Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s basketball team continued their winning ways this evening, narrowly defeating the Boston College Eagles by a final score of 99 to 95 in an offensive shootout that went to overtime at Purcell Pavilion.
The Irish were led on the night by Dane Goodwin, who scored 23 points on 8-of-13 shooting — including 18 first half points — and snagged 4 rebounds on the game.
Other key contributions came from Blake Wesley (18 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists), Nate Laszewski (16 points, 6 rebounds), Prentiss Hubb (13 points, 7 rebounds), Cormac Ryan (12 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists), and Paul Atkinson Jr. (13 points, 5 rebounds).
Overall, Notre Dame as a team shot 49% from the field and 38% from long range while winning the rebounding battle 36 to 27.
The Eagles were paced in scoring on the evening by DeMarr Langford (23 points, 7 rebounds), while Jaeden Zackery (18 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists), Makai Ashton-Langford (17 points, 5 assists, 3 rebounds), and Brevin Galloway (17 points, 4 rebounds) chipped in as well.
BC shot a blistering 56% from the floor overall and 44% from long range, but struggled down the stretch without big men James Karnik and Justin Vander Baan, who both fouled out in regulation.
The game began pretty well for the Irish, with ND players hitting 6 of their first 8 field goal attempts, driven by Dane Goodwin scoring 10 points before the 14-minute mark. However, BC had a pretty strong offensive start on their side as well, hanging around at 18-13 seven minutes into the game thanks to a balanced scoring effort.
As the half progressed, the Eagles stayed around and even made a quiet 9-2 run at one point, using a 4+ minute drought by the Irish to take a 31-30 lead over ND with 4 minutes until intermission. At that point, Goodwin began to knock down some shots to end the drought, pushing his total for the half to 18 by halftime. Those final minutes of the half featured the Irish and Eagles trading leads until the final two minutes, when BC managed to pull ahead by 4 at the break.
In the second half, the Irish offense kicked it up a notch — driven again by Goodwin with some key buckets thrown in from Hubb, Laszewski, and Wesley. However, Boston College continued their hot shooting from the first half, matching the Irish step-for-step and still leading ND 55-53 at the 14:26 mark.
From there, the game really went back and forth, as the Irish would manage to snag a small lead only to see BC answer with another big shot. After a Prentiss Hubb three and a Cormac Ryan tip-in with 10:35 to play, the Irish held a 63-60 lead at the under-12 media timeout. Following that break, Wesley made some nice plays to extend the lead to 5, only to see BC respond with some big plays of their own, including a nice and-one bucket from DeMarr Langford following the foul-out of Justin Vander Baan.
The two teams traded big shots, big stops, and the lead itself numerous times down the stretch of regulation. Wesley managed to hit a go-ahead shot with 13 seconds remaining, only for BC’s Ashton-Langford to sprint down the floor and make an easy lay-in to tie it. Wesley’s buzzer-beater mid-range jumper missed, and so the game headed to overtime tied at 86.
In the bonus basketball period, the Irish took an early 4-point lead all on free throws from Atkinson and Laszewski, but the Eagles again managed to battle back with some big jump shots that cut their deficit to 1 with about 30 seconds remaining. On the ensuing possession, Hubb dribbled the shot clock down, backed his guy down, and managed a banked-in jumper to give Notre Dame a three-point lead with 10 seconds left.
BC’s subsequent inbound pass was intercepted by Hubb, who then knocked down both of his free throws to ice the game for the Irish. BC managed another three just to make things interesting and force Hubb to make a couple more shots from the line, but ND still managed to escape with that 4-point win at home.
With the victory, the Irish improved to 19-7 overall and 12-3 in ACC play on the season, and have now won 15 of their last 17, including 5 in a row. They’re scheduled to play next on Saturday at 1 pm ET, when they will travel to Winston-Salem to take on the Wake Forest Demon Deacons on the road — their final shot at a Quad 1 win in this regular season.
