21, 2014
BOSTON (AP) – Trae Golden scored eight of his 24 points in the closing 2:16 and Georgia Tech held on after nearly blowing a big second-half lead to beat Boston College 68-60 on Tuesday night.
Kammeon Holsey added 13 points and Chris Bolden 11 for the Yellow Jackets (11-8, 2-4 Atlantic Coast Conference). Georgia Tech won for just the second time in six games.
Olivier Hanlan had 19 points and Lonnie Jackson 14 for Boston College (5-14, 1-5). The Eagles lost for the 10th time in 12 games.
Boston College, which trailed by 19 points in the first half, closed it to 57-56 on Patrick Heckmann’s dunk with 4:45 to play. The Eagles had two chances to take their first lead of the game before Golden nailed a running bank shot and followed Joe Rahon’s miss from beyond the arc by hitting a 3 from the top, making it 62-56 with 1:26 to play.
The Eagles made their charge by going 6-for-8 on 3-point attempts in the opening 10-and-a-half minutes of the second half.
Trailing by 18 early in the second half, BC made a run behind some sharp long-range shooting by Jackson, who nailed three straight 3s that helped slice the gap to 50-42 on Hanlan’s fast break layup with just under 16 minutes to play.
After a pair of baskets by Georgia Tech, Hanlan hit two more 3s during a 9-1 run, his second closing it to 55-51 with 9-and-a-half minutes left.
BC looked like an entirely different team defensively in the second half, playing a zone, double-teaming nearly every time a Yellow Jackets’ player caught the ball near the lane and forcing them to take a number of tough shots late in the shot clock. Georgia Tech missed 13 of its first 17 shots in the second half.
The Yellow Jackets matched their entire scoring output from a loss at home on Saturday against Miami by scoring 42 in the first half to lead Boston College by 15 at intermission. They hit 73.9 percent (17 of 23) of their shots in the half, going 6 for 8 on 3-point attempts.
Georgia Tech started hot from the field, making 14 of its initial 16 shots, and didn’t cool down until missing the final two. The Yellow Jackets pulled to a double digit lead (12-2) just 3:40 into the game after Golden scored seven straight points. Bolden’s 3 from the left corner gave them a 16-3 lead.
Georgia Tech used a 12-2 run midway into the half to pull to its biggest lead of the game, 34-15, on Holsey’s layup. Bolden and Golden each hit 3s during the spree.
BC shot just 36 percent (9 of 25) in the opening half, missing eight of its 10 3-point attempts. The Eagles had a tough time getting the ball inside Georgia Tech’s 2-3 zone.
Due to a snowstorm that hit the area around rush hour combined with a 9 P.M. start, there were about 500 fans in the stands when the game tipped off, but a late arriving group of BC students helped bring some energy and noise to a quiet arena early into the game.
Hanlan scored 41 points against the Yellow Jackets the last time the schools met, coming in the ACC tourney last season. It was the most points in a tourney game since 1970.
It was Georgia Tech’s first of four of five on the road. The Yellow Jackets are at North Carolina State on Sunday.
BC is off until it hosts Virginia Tech next Wednesday
