If Boston College is to take a big step forward this season, a big contributor to that may not be one individual, or even group of individuals. Instead, their mindset may be the difference between this year being more of the same or a big jump in the win column, especially in ACC play.
Talk to head coach Jim Christian, and things related to the players’ mindset will come up a lot. Whether it’s taking ownership of what to do on defense, or players finding ways to lead, so much of what the fourth-year head coach talks about with his team revolves around their mindset.
The Eagles have won just two ACC games the past two seasons, both coming last year. They will go as their current core goes, consisting primarily of their sophomore and junior classes, and this year that is likely the case even more so since they don’t have a single true senior along with one graduate student.
From a personnel standpoint, the Eagles start and end with the backcourt of Jerome Robinson and Ky Bowman. Robinson was fourth in the ACC in scoring as a sophomore, while the hyper-competitive Bowman made the ACC’s All-Rookie team last year. They won’t get talked about as much as other backcourts, but this is a good building block, especially when you add someone like junior Jordan Chatman on the perimeter as well. Chatman had his moments last year as he transferred in from Brigham Young.
Behind them is Avery Wilson, a well-built freshman from Georgia who was his school’s all-time leading scorer. He’s a competitive guard and will need to help them in at least a reserve role. A.J. Turner was a nice glue guy, but he transferred after last season.
While Robinson is the go-to guy, a big part of whether or not this team makes a jump may come down to him realizing he has capable teammates. Christian wants him to know, and his play to reflect, that he doesn’t have to do it all by himself. Even playing off the ball, he can make teammates better, and that could make a big difference with this group.
The frontcourt is where the challenges are likely to be the biggest for this team, though there are plenty of potential options. One given is that Deontae Hawkins will make an impact, as he led Illinois State in scoring and rebounding last year, and Christian says he’s by far this team’s biggest leader. That tells you that the graduate transfer, who also shot over 44 percent from long range, has come in and asserted himself right away, and you can pencil him in at one frontcourt spot. Sophomore Nik Popovic showed some promise last year and should also have every opportunity to grab a bigger role.
Among the holdovers, Johncarlos Reyes is perhaps the “potential” player of the bunch. Reyes is very long and has gained some strength since last year, and they’ll need him to be more than a bit player. The recent transfer of Mike Sagay hurts mainly from a potential standpoint, as he has all kinds of ability and a good body, but was still learning to process the game.
There is some potential with freshmen Luka Kraljevic and Steffon Mitchell, both of whom played at prep schools. Kraljevic has a good body and has been in a lot of international play for his native Slovenia, while Mitchell went to Sunrise Christian Academy last year after setting scoring and rebounding records at his prior high school in Minnesota. Both should see significant minutes and possibly start.
The Eagles’ non-conference schedule gets more challenging as they move along, with the ACC season opener against Duke mixed in on December 9. They open with visits from Maine, South Carolina State and Sacred Heart, all winnable games, before going to Connecticut to take on Texas Tech and either Northwestern or La Salle in the Hall of Fame Tip-Off Tournament. After hosting improving Colgate, they play three straight on the road at Providence, Nebraska (ACC-Big Ten Challenge) and Hartford before welcoming Duke. They close out with Columbia, an underrated Ivy League team, Central Connecticut State and Richmond, and a January 13 date with Dartmouth is mixed in with early ACC play.
As you might expect from a team that won just two conference games, the Eagles have plenty of areas for improvement. Defense is one, as the Eagles allowed opponents to shoot 47 percent from the field last year, while at the offensive end, they gave away more possessions than any other ACC team by a good margin. Christian says they aren’t stressing defense any more than usual, but emphasizes the mindset like with so much else. He felt they lost a lot of games last year as a result of short stretches of games in which they were otherwise right there.
The Eagles may have an underrated backcourt, but in all they are not as talented as many other ACC teams. Assembling enough talent to compete on that basis is far from easy. That means this team is going to go as far as they do based on how they get the most out of their talents and compete. An NCAA Tournament bid looks like a long shot, but a big jump in ACC wins and potentially a trip to another postseason tournament would be great signs that the program is going in the right direction.
