The 2024-'25 men's basketball season starts tonight with an 8:00 matchup with Citadel.

From the outside, there are little-to-no expectations surrounding this version of the Eagles after so many departures and subsequently new additions.

But, what are head coach Earl Grant's expectations? He talked about that a couple weeks ago when meeting the media following an open practice on Media Day.

"This team has a chance to be very competitive," he said. "We've just got to focus on growth and getting better every day and let the chips fall where they may...it's different (this year), it's different for me and it's different for a lot of people. The opportunity to bring in new players that are experienced, but all from other places...we've got a team where half our players are back from last year, but there's another half there's new guys. The good thing is, it's new guys that have produced.

"It's new guys that were All-Conference players and new guys that have averaged a lot of points and were productive. So, at least we don't have all new freshman. We have new, experienced players. We're older than we were last year, but now we've got to find the understanding of 'how do you win at BC?' Everyone needs to get on the same page with that belief, from a defensive standpoint to an offensive stand point.

"This is a physical, competitive group, which I'm excited about."

In a world where college athletics is basically free agency, Grant also touched on the building of this roster and why he's so encouraged about it.

"I talked to a couple of the NBA guys as we were going through...I guess it's free agency. I didn't look at it as free agency, but I talked to Brad Stevens about it," he said. "I talked to Wes Wilcox (Sacramento) and Dave Teller (Spurs), all guys who are in a position as a front office guy, but they weren't seven or eight years ago when I met them. So, I can have a real conversation with them. Basically, when we were going through the departure of a few players, my conversations with them...they were very excited about the opportunity we had. They were like 'this is a great opportunity to make your team better.'

"So, as we were acquiring new players and bringing in new talent, every now and again I'd get a text from a guy saying 'that's a good pickup' or 'that's a good trade.' It was really free agency with players leaving your program and entering your program without a lot of restriction, without a lot of penalty. But, at the same time, they can sort of negotiate a contract. It was definitely free agency and I'm glad with the departures we had, we could go into the portal and didn't have to go get all high school kids like you'd have to...seven years ago, if we lose four players, you're going to replace them with a high school guy or a transfer that has to sit out.

"You can build a team right away with older guys."

Grant is hoping he did a good job as 'GM' if the Eagles are going to shock some people and make a run at the program's first NCAA tournament berth in 16 years.