Boston, MA
Kirouac’s dunk sparks Georgia Tech to victory over Boston College
Jackets shook off a sluggish start to dispose of Boston College, 65-53.
Georgia Tech guard Chas Kelley III finishes a layup past Boston College’s Marko Radunovic on Saturday, Jan. 3 at McCamish Pavilion. (Danny Karnik/Georgia Tech Athletics)
Trailing late in the second half Saturday at McCamish Pavilion, Georgia Tech needed a spark. Cole Kirouac delivered.
The 7-foot freshman found himself unguarded inside the arc on the left side of the court. Without hesitation he bolted toward the rim, took flight and slammed home the ball with two hands to tie the score at 46 with seven minutes left on the clock.
Kirouac’s dunk brought many of the 5,978 to their feet and changed the energy in the building while the Yellow Jackets threatened to lose to the worst team in the ACC. Instead, Tech took the lead shortly after Kirouac’s play and never trailed again in a 65-53 victory.
“Originally, it was just supposed to be a handoff. I saw my man sagging off. I just took one dribble, went up and dunked it,” Kirouac said. “I feel like I was pretty tired in that moment. I feel like that energized me a lot. I think we had energy as a team, but I feel like it probably boosted it a little bit.”
Said Tech coach Damon Stoudamire: “That was a heck of a dunk he had. That ignited us, ignited the crowd. Proud of him and happy for him.”
Saturday’s victory was the 10th of the season for Tech — all 10 have come at home and all 10 have come against opponents which reside in Quadrant 4 of the NCAA’s NET rankings. Per that metric, Boston College was the ACC’s lowest-ranked team at No. 179 going into Saturday.
But the Jackets (10-5, 1-1 ACC), the ACC’s second-worst team in the NET, found themselves in a dogfight for much of the afternoon despite leading by 10 late in the first half. The Eagles (7-7, 0-1 ACC) had momentum on their side and led by four with 9:14 to play before wilting at the end.
Tech guard Lamar Washington flirted with a triple-double by finishing with 17 points, 12 rebounds and five assists. Kowacie Reeves scored 16 and Baye Ndongo had 10 points and eight boards.
Twenty of Tech’s 65 points came from the free-throw line. The Jackets also had 23 fast break points — Boston College had none.
“We’re a good team,” Washington said. “When we play together and we play with confidence and we play how we’re supposed to play, we can — I feel like we can beat anybody in the nation.”
Tech was sluggish and sloppy at the outset, suffering through a field goal drought of 6:04 while missing nine of its first 10 shots. But a Ndongo layup followed by a Kam Craft 3 from the right corner tied the game at 11-all a little less than eight minutes into the fight.
The Jackets began to get a feel for things offensively from there and took their first lead on a Jaeden Mustaf layup at 13-12. Akai Fleming’s powerful finish from the right block 3 1/2 minutes later put the home team ahead 19-15.
Tech had six assists on its first seven made shots at that point.
Fleming’s score began an 10-2 Tech run that also included a Fleming dunk and two Fleming free throws that upped the lead to 27-17.
But the Jackets wouldn’t score the rest of the half and had to settle for a 27-24 lead at the break. The Eagles, despite shooting 9 of 34 from the floor, ended the period on a 7-0 run to close the gap.
“I was actually disappointed the last three minutes of the first half because BC, they’ve played a lot of games where they just rock you to sleep,” Stoudamire said. “You’ll feel like you’re in control of the game and then all of a sudden you lose a rhythm offensively, and then they start scoring some buckets and they hit a bank-shot 3 and you just have all kind of things start happening, and that’s when the game turned. The momentum of the game, it shifted. And we couldn’t find it back offensively.”
A back-and-forth first eight minutes of the second half saw Boston College finally tie the game at 36 before Tech squeaked ahead by four thanks to two Washington free throws and a Reeves layup.
The Eagles responded with a 7-0 run and took the lead on a Donald Hand Jr. 3, and then went up 43-40 on Chase Forte’s layup at the 10:33 mark. Boden Kapke’s putback after a missed free throw gave BC a 46-42 edge 64 seconds later.
That was the last little glimmer of hope the visitors had.
“We couldn’t have won games like this last year,” Stoudamire said. “The way I look at everything that’s happening, I think sometimes people get bent out of shape when you play teams and you don’t beat ‘em by how many points they want you to win by or different things of that nature. We went to Duke and we lost by six. We come back (Saturday) and it was kind of a grimy game.
“But we’ve been playing close games, so we’re seasoned in these games. Doesn’t matter who you play, you’re seasoned in ‘em, and I think that what you’ve seen. You didn’t see no panic with our guys coming down the stretch.”
Hand and Kapke both scored 13 for BC, which shot 18 of 66 from the field and 4 of 29 from long range.
Tech returns to action at 7 p.m. Tuesday against Syracuse (9-5, 0-1) at McCamish Pavilion.
Chad Bishop is a Georgia Tech sports reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Boston, MA
Ariana Grande fan gets better tickets to TD Garden concert in Boston after resolving StubHub issue
Ariana Grande is coming to Boston next week and one of her biggest fans in Massachusetts will be there after resolving a ticket issue with StubHub.
Kelsie Duest of Hopedale had two front row balcony seats to Grande’s show on July 23 at TD Garden. Her brother bought them for her on StubHub last year. Her mother said it cost nearly $1,400 for the pair.
But about a month later, Sharon Duest checked her Apple Wallet and noticed the tickets were invalid. She said StubHub offered them a choice, take a refund or different tickets.
Duest ended up accepting the tickets that were offered, only to learn they were obstructed view seats behind the stage and Kelsie wouldn’t be able to see Grande during parts of the concert.
Concerned that her daughter, who has Down syndrome, would miss out on the experience of seeing Grande on stage, Duest tried calling and emailing Stubhub hoping to get better seats.
“We didn’t want anything for free. We just wanted just the tickets that we had,” she told WBZ-TV.
With the concert coming up soon, the Duests reached out to the I-Team’s Call for Action for help, who contacted StubHub.
“We’re so sorry about the issues Sharon experienced with their ticket order, especially given how meaningful this concert is to Kelsie,” a company spokesperson said in an email.
“We understand how disappointing and stressful that situation was. Our Customer Care team worked with them to resolve the issue and ultimately secured upgraded replacement tickets in a section in front of where the original seats were located, allowing them to attend the show with an improved view.”
Kelsie and her mom now have club seats closer to the stage than the tickets they originally purchased.
“I know we couldn’t have done this without you guys. Thank you, thank you from the bottom of our hearts,” Sharon Duest said.
A good rule of thumb with electronic tickets is to always check on them to confirm that they remain valid up until the event. You should also keep good records in case you need a refund or a replacement.
ATTLEBORO, Mass. (WJAR) — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Boston said Friday that it arrested a Barbados national during targeted operations in Attleboro.
ICE Boston said Irijah Jabarri Stowe Marshall is “a criminal illegal alien.”
According to officials, his criminal history includes a pending charge for failing to register as a sex offender in Massachusetts.
He was also previously convicted of attempted rape and aggravated sexual contact, ICE Boston said.
A 20-year-old Boston man is facing a series of charges after prosecutors say he shot at Boston Police officers during an attempted stop in Dorchester before leading them on a foot chase through neighborhood backyards.
Rasiel Carbuccia was arraigned in Dorchester District Court Thursday on a list of charges, including assault with a dangerous weapon, carrying without a license and possession of a large capacity firearm, stemming from the Wednesday night incident near Devon and Laredo streets.
Opened fire with ghost gun, prosecutors say
According to prosecutors, Boston Police officers attempted to stop Carbuccia when he pulled out a gun and began shooting, striking a Boston police cruiser before fleeing the scene.
Investigators said Carbuccia ran through backyards and hopped fences before he was taken into custody. Officers did not fire their weapons during the encounter.
Prosecutors said investigators later recovered the firearm along the path where Carbuccia had been running.
“It was determined that the firearm was a ghost gun, and it did not possess a serial number,” Suffolk County prosecutor Jacqueline Martinelli said in court.
Union says “everyone should be outraged”
Larry Calderone, president of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, said the shooting is part of what he believes is a troubling trend of violence this summer and renewed his call for more officers on Boston streets.
“Everybody should be outraged. Bullets flying in the city’s streets at uniformed police officers. How can we possibly convince the general public that they’re safe to walk around their own neighborhoods?” Calderone said.
“We have teenagers pulling firearms and stealing mopeds from others in broad daylight. We have shots being fired at police officers in uniform, officers being attacked, people being shot daily that we can’t solve the crimes,” he added.
No one was injured in the shooting, but Calderone said the outcome could have been much worse.
“Thank goodness, neither officer or a pedestrian, an innocent child or somebody in the middle of the evening did not get killed last night. Just as thankful, at least they caught him. They recovered the weapon,” he said.
After the arraignment, Carbuccia’s attorney declined to discuss the case in detail but indicated mental health issues could become part of the proceedings.
“Ultimately as you guys know this is a process that has to play out and he’s presumed innocent and there’s going to be a number of things that are going to come out in respect to mental health and potentially the investigation, I don’t really have much more to say beyond that,” attorney Bob White told reporters.
According to prosecutors, Carbuccia had two open assault cases and an active warrant at the time of his arrest.
He’s being held in jail without bail and is scheduled to return to court later this month for a dangerousness hearing.
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