Miami Defeats Boston College Men’s Basketball, 88-72, Despite 39 Points from the Langford Brothers

On Wednesday night, the Boston College men’s basketball team traveled down south to face the #16 Miami Hurricanes. BC came into the game looking for an earned ranked win after losing a very close game to the Duke Blue Devils in the closing minute. Miami presented a formidable match-up, being ranked 16th in the nation and winning 9 of their last 10, including a 2-point W over #6 Virginia. The Hurricanes continued that hot streak, taking this game 88-72.

The game was rough out of the gate for the Eagles. Miami found itself with an early 8-2 lead after a few minutes of play, with BC getting called for multiple fouls and missing most of their shots. But they turned it around quickly to go on a 11-2 run to take the lead within the next few minutes. Miami responded with another run of their own, scoring 15 straight on their way to a 23-13 lead well past the halfway point of the first half, taking the wind out of BC’s sails badly. The Langford brothers were able to lay-in a few shots to keep things interesting at the end of the half, but Makai missed his final few shots and the Canes’ lead stretched to 43-28 at halftime.

BC came out in the second half on a mission, starting on an 8-2 run that included a drawn offensive foul and a technical foul on Miami coach Jim Larranaga for arguing the call. BC continued their hot streak inside with timely scoring from Makai Ashton-Langford and DeMarr Langford, who had essentially taken the game over on offense for the Eagles. Miami had no answer for the brothers as they both quickly racked up double-digit points within a few minutes in the second half and kept going. Suddenly it was just a 6-point lead for Miami, 52-46, several minutes into the second half.

From there, Miami guard Isaiah Wong got the crowd up on their feet. Two made three-pointers in a row electrified the stands and stretched the Hurricane lead to 65-52. DeMarr Langford Jr. did his best job to quell any panic, jamming a nasty fast break dunk and hitting a mid-range jumper to keep it at 65-56. BC was able to keep its scoring going and make the game interesting, but their defense had no answer for Miami, who kept their lead at double digits for the final few minutes of the contest. Despite some exciting moments and lots of scoring on both ends, the Hurricanes ended up pulling out a fairly comfortable win, 88-72.

Miami shot 12/18 from three-point range on the night, making it extremely difficult for BC to put up any sort of fight, especially considering that the Eagles are the worst three-point shooting team in the ACC themselves. Some of it was flukey, like the crazy deep well-defended three-pointers that Wong hit in the second half. But most of it came from just poor defense. Miami was able to thread passes inside and around the court right past BC players for several open looks, uncharacteristic of the Eagles’ typical quality defense.

The Langford brothers were able to find their groove offensively in the paint and scored 39 combined points, but that success was largely not shared around to their teammates. Jaeden Zackery didn’t even score a point until well into the second half, and BC players outside of the Langfords scored just 33 points on 14/34 (41%) shooting.

The Eagles host Wake Forest in Conte Forum on Saturday night at 8pm.