BC's timing is perfect

They only led once. Luckily for the Boston College Eagles, it came at the end of a game they otherwise had a lot of reasons to lose.

Craig Smith capped a furious second-half comeback with a buzzer-beating floater from 12 feet and BC remained unbeaten, if not unblemished, with a 67-65 victory over Kent State last night before 6,706 at Conte Forum. It was the Eagles' 10th straight win out of the blocks, while Kent State had a seven-game winning streak snapped and fell to 8-3.

Kent State led by as many as 18 points in the first half, by 14 with less than 13 minutes left, and, after a BC rally tied the score, by 5 with 99 seconds to play. But the Golden Flashes allowed the Eagles a last chance when DeAndre Haynes, a 70 percent free throw shooter, boinged a pair with seven seconds left and the game knotted at 65.

The Eagles didn't waste it, with Smith taking the inbounds pass on the BC side of the floor and going solo the rest of the way in the final 5.8 seconds. "I was thinking, if the ball gets into my hands, I've got to put it in the hole," said Smith, who was only 4 of 11 from the field. "I thought it was a pretty good shot."

His hoop pushed him into double figures with 11 points, still 10 shy of his average. Jared Dudley led the Eagles with 21 points, including a huge trey and a steal to help erase Kent State's 5-point lead in the final two minutes. Freshman Sean Williams, who had been suspended for the last two games for violating team rules, also played a big role in the comeback.

"That second half, they made me look like a good basketball coach," said BC's Al Skinner. "It was a tale of two cities. In the first half, we were pretty bad. We didn't offer much."

The second half, however, saw the Eagles in what Smith called their "sense of urgency" mode. They put together a 14-0 run, holding the previously hot-shooting Golden Flashes scoreless for more than seven minutes. That run produced the game's first tie (56-56) on a Williams follow.

But Kent State bounced back with two 3-pointers from Armon Gates and a third from Haynes (11 points) to take a 65-60 lead with 1:39 remaining. But Dudley nailed a trey to make it 65-63 and then picked Gates's pocket, which led to a tying layup by Jermaine Watson with 1:06 to play.

The next scoring chance came when Haynes was fouled by Watson on a drive to the hoop. Haynes is not Mr. Automatic from the line, but he's pretty reliable. But the Golden Flashes had not spent a lot of time at the line; the two freebies by Haynes were the only Kent State attempts of the half, and the Golden Flashes had just four in the game (to BC's 19). Haynes's two boulders begat a BC timeout and Skinner wasn't sure what was going to happen when play resumed.

"There were a couple of options on the last play," he said. "Craig was one of them."

Kent State allowed Smith to catch the entry pass unchallenged. It allowed him plenty of room to dribble into the play, perhaps unaware that Smith is one of the Eagles' better ballhandlers. If the Golden Flashes didn't know it then, they sure know it now.

This was the third meeting in as many years for the teams; the previous two had gone into overtime, and this one almost did. BC owns a 2-1 advantage, winning twice here. Kent State won two years ago in Cleveland.

Neither team had played in a week. In the first half, it looked more like a millennium for the Eagles. They did one thing well -- take the ball out of the basket. Kent State connected on 56 percent of its shots, including 6 of 13 from international waters. The Golden Flashes also dominated the glass and led by 18 on four occasions. The lead was 14 at the break.

It was still a 14-point spread when Haynes nailed a trey with 12:54 to play. The Golden Flashes didn't score again until Gates (16 points) hit another trey with 5:32 remaining. That hoop snapped the game's first tie. There would be one more tie -- and Smith's hoop snapped that one.