BC Men’s Basketball at Wake Forest: Final Score and Analysis

It took some end of game heroics from Ky Bowman, but BC men’s basketball was able to sneak out of Winston-Salem with a road victory tonight. The Eagles had a strong shooting start and jumped out to an early lead, capitalizing on threes from Chris Herren Jr. and Jordan Chatman. They also benefited from a terrible Wake Forest start, shooting under 25% through the first ten minutes for the game and turning the ball over nine time in the first half. Despite Wake’s early struggles, BC was unable to pull away fully and left themselves open to surrendering the lead when Jaylen Hoard and the Deacons finally found their stroke. After leading for a full 14 minutes, the Deacons were able to storm back and take a 5-point lead at the half.

The Eagles were able to hang around in the second half but could not manage to take the lead for most of the hlaf. The Deacons swarmed the perimeter defensively and doubled Ky Bowman on most possessions, which was a successful formula for slowing down the BC offense. With Wynston Tabbs out again due to nagging knee injury, it was up to Nik Popovic and Jordan Chatman to create offense when Bowman was neutralized. Popovic showed off some good moves in the paint and racked up 21 points. Chatman had another proficient game from behind the three-point line, sinking 5 threes on the night. With the game tied and 15 seconds on the clock, Bowman stepped into the unlikeliest of contested threes and sunk it. The Eagles used their two fouls to slow the Deacons down in their final possession and Bowman came up with a clutch defensive rebound. It was Jared Hamilton’s free throw that put the game out of reach and the Eagles won it 65-61.

What looked to be an easy game in the opening minutes turned into a dogfight that needed some final second heroics from Bowman. Wake Forest exposed BC’s lack of depth offensively in this game. The team relies heavily on Tabbs and Bowman to create shots, and while Chatman and Popovic can take on some of the load, there are too many guys on the floor who need to be set up to score. Jairus Hamilton had a concerning game, contributing little while making some costly mistakes that resulted in turnovers. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that the team was able to get the ever-elusive ACC road win without their second leading scorer. After losing their first four conference games, the Eagles have won two in a row and hope to continue the streak at home against Syracuse on Wednesday night.