Trailing by just 10 at halftime in its Never Forget Tribute Classic game against Villanova on Saturday, the Eagles were in it.
Then, BC quickly was on the wrong end of a 77-56 blowout against Villanova. Now 11 games in, the Eagles are one game under .500 at 5-6 with a should-win game against Stonehill at home on Tuesday before having eight days to prepare for a huge game at Conte against Virginia Tech.
That game will be followed by another lengthy 10-day break until BC closes out 2022 on New Year’s Eve day in the dome against Syracuse. Notre Dame, Duke and Miami loom on the horizon to open 2023. The Eagles are still searching for their identity, but we’re going to know whether or not this team has the ability to make a tournament push pretty early on in January.
“Our identity needs to be…it’s always going to be defense and rebounding,” head coach Earl Grant said after the loss. “That’s something we strive for.”
The problem right now seems to be continuity. With several new faces and some injuries, it’s taking some time for guys to get adjusted to one another on both ends of the floor.
“Are we there yet with seven new guys, playing three freshman almost 30 minutes a game? No, we’re not there,” Earl added. “But, we’re going to continue to strive for it. We’re going to keep defending, we’re going to keep rebounding and take care of the ball. We’re going to be unselfish, we’re going to care about each other and that’s what we’re striving for.
“With a lot of new players and a lot of youth in the program, we’re just not there yet.”
Just because BC is young doesn’t mean the staff and players aren’t setting the bar high. With an eye already towards March, Grant believes in his process.
“We’re not at the end of the journey,” he added. “The journey ends in March. The excitement is, we’ve got time to grow. We can build on what we saw (Saturday), there was some positives. Them, we’ve got to try and clean up some of the things we didn’t do well.”
It’s a true one day at a time format for the Eagles right now. Fans may not like it, but if the end result is a competitive product in March - even after some ugly losses like the one against UNH along the way - it’ll ultimately be a valuable learning lesson for a program still trying to grow together
“Obviously, we wish we could kind of learn from wins a lot of times,” added Mason Madsen. “I think sometimes, maybe learn more from losses, so obviously there’s going to be growing pains, at least at the beginning of the season.
Obviously, like coach said, it’s a long season. We’re looking forward to getting a couple dudes back that’ll change us a little bit, but I think (we just need to) learn from the losses. The more we play together, the more comfortable we’ll get.”
