BC's Olivier Hanlan scores 41, sets ACC freshman record

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Boston College coach Steve Donahue didn't know it at the time, but he picked the perfect time to take out his star freshman.

Neither of them had encyclopedic knowledge of Atlantic Coast Conference scoring records, so they didn't know Olivier Hanlan's 41 points would break Harrison Barnes and Tyler Hansbrough's freshman single-game record of 40. But Donahue did know that Hanlan had just hit yet another 3-pointer, and Boston College's lead had swelled to more than 20 points and just two minutes remained in the game. So he took him out.

"I had no idea," Donahue said. "That's not something we really care about, with all due respect to the scoring record. ... I would never want to think that something like a record was more important than what we do. I would never put it ahead of the team."

The Eagles beat Georgia Tech 84-64 in the first round of the ACC tournament on Thursday, an impressive margin of victory in any contest, but particularly this one. The Yellow Jackets opened the game on a 15-0 run.

"It happened so quickly, it kind of woke us up," Donahue said.

Even after the wakeup call, Boston College started slowly -- even Hanlan, who began the game 2-for-6 from the field. He went on to make his next 12 shots, including 10 3-pointers. He finished with 41 on 14-for-18 shooting, etching his name in the ACC recordbooks with the best single-game performance by a freshman in the league. Not terribly surprising coming from the newly crowned ACC Freshman of the Year.

"My last 12 shots were not really tough shots," Hanlan said. "My teammates found me in spots, and I was trying to move around."

And, as Georgia Tech coach Brian Gregory put it, "We lost him a couple of times."

Boston College guard Joe Rahon said, though he, too, didn't know just how special Hanlan's day was, he knew his fellow freshman was on fire. So he did what any good teammate would do: Get him the ball. Rahon finished the day with seven assists.

"Today, he was putting on a show," Rahon said. "As a player in the court, you're trying not to get caught up in it and you try to play and do your best, but there's no doubt about it. Whenever you're penetrating, you're looking for his guy, his defender. If you can get him a clean look, more than likely it's going to go in."

Hanlan's 41 points were the most scored by anyone in an ACC tournament game since 1970, when North Carolina's Charles Scott scored 41 against Virginia in the tournament quarterfinals. Only two players in ACC history have ever scored more than 41 in a tournament game. (Lennie Rosenbluth had 45 for UNC in 1957 and Virginia's Buzz Wilkinson had 42 in 1954.)