By Zachary McMahon –
The No. 11 Boston College Eagles faced the no. 6 Clemson Tigers in the second round of the ACC men’s basketball tournament at the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night.
The Eagles beat the No. 14 Miami Hurricanes in the first round of the tournament on Tuesday, after an impressive performance from Quinten Post, who scored 30 points and 12 rebounds.
The Clemson Tigers comes into the matchup with an 11-9 conference record as they were in a three-way tie with Wake Forest and Syracuse. Wake Forest won one matchup each against Syracuse and Clemson, while Clemson won both matches against Syracuse in the regular season, so they ended up the No. 6 seed in the tournament.
BC lost their only matchup against Clemson 89-78, who was at the time the No. 21 ranked team in the AP Top 25 Poll on Jan. 13. BC came into this game 0-2 against Clemson in the ACC Tournament all-time, losing both games in 2018 and 2011. However, BC won two out of their previous four matchups after losing nine straight matchups from 2014-2020.
This game was billed as a legacy game for senior center Quinten Post, who is a 1,000+ point scorer for the BC men’s basketball program after transferring from Mississippi State, as if BC lost that would’ve been his last college basketball game.
That being said, Post came into this game being aggressive on the court which led to him taking two personal foul calls in the first seven minutes in the game, and he was put on the bench, which enabled Clemson to put on a 10-2 run to cut their deficit to 18-17 as the Eagles struggled on their shots, having a couple of shots blocked and letting the shot clock run out without taking a shot. However, after that one point deficit, BC was able to put on a run of their own as they went on a 19-5 run for eight minutes, which ended when Joseph Girard made two three-pointers at the end of the first half.
The Eagles never put the foot off the gas in the second half as they never got below double-digits for their lead, and near the end of the game their biggest lead was at 23 points after Claudell Harris Jr., made a three-pointer.
After being out for most of the first half, Post came back in and immediately started scoring with a hook shot. The Clemson defense was handsy during the game and thus got themselves into four trouble, which enabled the Eagles to get 16 shots at the foul line, which they made all of them.
The Eagles would go on to win 76-55 as they upset the No. 6 Tigers and move on to the Quarterfinal Round for a cinderella run at the ACC Tournament Championship, which if they win could punch their ticket into March Madness for the first time since 2009.
Harris Jr., was the star of the game leading all scorers with 27 points, followed by Jaeden Zachery with 22 points. Also in double-figures is Post with 11 points and Donald Hand Jr., getting 10 points off the bench.
The Eagles will face the No. 3 Virginia Cavaliers on Thursday night for another late game at 9:30 p.m. for the Quarterfinal round. The winner of that matchup will face the winner of Duke/NC State for the semifinal round on Friday night at 9:30 p.m.