Georgia Tech falls flat in loss at Boston College

The 54 points are a season low for the Jackets (13-14, 7-9 ACC).

“Big picture for me, and the challenge, is trying to lock guys in,” Tech coach Damon Stoudamire said. “I knew going off for a week was gonna be a struggle. You can’t play records because we’re not good enough. We gotta play the game.

“I can accept winning and losing, and it’s like I told the guys, ‘It wasn’t that you didn’t play hard, you didn’t buy in that BC was a team that was struggling and they’re really trying to make things happen. They’re trying to make sure they get into the (ACC) tournament.’ That, for me, was the disappointing thing.”

Boston College (12-15, 4-12 ACC) won a second straight game but won for just the third time this calendar year. Donald Hand Jr. led the Eagles with 18 points and was one of three BC players to grab seven rebounds.

Tech, 1-8 on the road this season and 4-18 on the road under Stoudamire, will stay in Boston on Sunday before departing for Pittsburgh on Monday. The Jackets are scheduled to face the Panthers (16-11, 7-9 ACC) at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

“Mentality,” Stoudamire said of Tech’s road woes. “You gotta play the whole game. It’s mental. A lot goes on and you have to mentally be tough. It’s not physical. You have to be mentally tough. Moving forward, we got two more road games and then obviously the tournament’s on the road. We’re gonna have to figure something out because you just can’t play at home every game.”

Tech really struggled to get its offense humming in the early going, a premonition of things to come in front of a crowd of 6,038 that included former Georgia Tech basketball legend Travis Best and Boston Celtics assistant coach Sam Cassell. The Jackets missed 11 of their first 16 shots yet still found themselves up 14-13 after a pair of Ndongo free throws with 11:18 left in the opening half.

Joshua Beadle and Hand Jr. then knocked down back-to-back 3s, respectively, to put the Eagles ahead 19-14 and then Elijah Strong sank a 3-ball, BC’s sixth of the half, to make it a 22-16 game.

Another Strong 3, this one from the right corner, put Boston College up 25-18. But that also marked the start of a scoreless stretch for the Eagles that lasted a little more than four minutes.

Tech, though, couldn’t cut the deficit any lower than three during that spell, and had to go into the break down 32-27.

George and Powell were 1-13 combined from the floor and Ndongo and Lance Terry combined for 22 of Tech’s 27 points. The Jackets also missed eight 3s and turned the ball over five times.

“Defense travels and you gotta keep stress on the game. We just didn’t do that,” Stoudamire said. “We had a couple opportunities, gave up offensive rebounds, gave up some things that just kind of hurt us. The stress of the game, (BC) could never feel it.”

Boston College opened the second half with back-to-back layups from Chad Venning. That forced Stoudamire to call a timeout 109 seconds into the period. The stoppage didn’t work, as BC upped its lead to 42-27 while Tech missed its first eight shots and turned the ball over three times over the first 5 1/2 minutes.

Tech, to its credit, continued to fight and claw its way back, cutting the score to 56-50 on a George 3-pointer with 4:28 to go. But the Jackets wouldn’t get any closer the rest of the way.

Tech also fell to 5-25 under Stoudamire when trailing a game at halftime.

“Shots weren’t falling, we let that get to us, let it affect our defense, and then I feel like Boston College picked up on that and their energy picked up while ours kinda went down,” said Terry, who scored 15. “We have to lock in more. Have to play harder. When we get on the road we start not doing the stuff we do at home. We’re not locked-in as much. We have to be better.”