Jaeden Zackery scored 14 of his season-high 18 points in the second half as Boston College rallied past rival Notre Dame 70-63 on Tuesday night at Chestnut Hill, Mass.
The Eagles (8-7, 2-2 ACC) never led until Mason Madsen’s pull-up jumper with 1:43 remaining. They closed the game on a 17-4 run.
Prince Aligbe had 15 points, Makai Ashton-Langford scored 12 and Quinten Post added 10 and nine rebounds for BC. DeMarr Langford Jr. had seven rebounds and eight assists.
Dane Goodwin and JJ Starling had 16 points apiece to lead Notre Dame (8-7, 0-4), but the duo combined for just five in the second half.
The Irish lost freshman forward Ven-Allen Lubin to a left ankle injury in the first half.
The Eagles leveled the game at 52 after Zackery’s free throw and following layup, but Starling’s 3-pointer with 5:20 left swung the score Notre Dame’s way again and opened a 7-1 run.
Algibe’s layup and Madsen’s aforementioned jumper started a 10-0 spurt that helped BC pull away. Going 9-of-13 from the free-throw line in the second half also helped the cause.
Trey Wertz hit back-to-back threes to begin the second half, giving Notre Dame a 10-point lead at 44-34. Two Ashton-Langford jumpers bookended BC’s 6-0 response.
The Irish missed seven straight field goals after Wertz’s second bucket. They also had a 1-of-7 streak immediately after starting 4-for-4 during the first half.
The visitors had a seven-point lead on three occasions — the last on Nate Laszewski’s layup — before Aligbe’s back-to-back layups brought BC back within 52-49 with 7:25 to go.
The Irish led 10-2 to start, opening up a 7-0 run that finished with Goodwin’s open triple.
Post’s back-to-back layups helped BC claw within 13-9. His initial second-chance bucket inside opened a 4-of-5 run from the field for the Eagles.
The visitors later ran off a 6-0 run to lead 25-17. BC canned its next five field goals, with Post’s transition layup making it 30-28.
Notre Dame then rattled off 4 of 5 shots from the field — including consecutive Goodwin and Starling makes — to go up 38-30. Madsen’s layup capped BC’s first-half closing 4-0 run. Goodwin finished the half 3-for-3 on 3-pointers with a game-high 15 points.
–Field Level Media