Meet Your New Basketball Eagles: Ryan Anderson

Just as we did prior to the start of the hockey season, Soaring to Glory will introduce the fans to the new Boston College basketball players for the 2011-2012 season. This will be a good exercise, since apparently 99% of ACC fans have never heard of any of them. We head into this new year, which is only two weeks away, with some of the largest amount of turnover I’ve ever seen in this program. Eighty percent (80%) of the roster, or twelve of fifteen, including Matt Humphrey who sat out last season due to transfer redshirt, will wear the Boston College uniform for the first time on November 14, outside of the exhibition game on the 5th. Whereas the hockey team only looked very different with many new names on it, the basketball team actually IS very different.

The first new Eagle to meet is the one who is arguably the star of the incoming class: Ryan Anderson (#12).

Standing at 6-8, Anderson was the high school basketball player of the year in California, and was also the LA Times’ Player of the Year. Right away, you know Anderson is good, and it’s not just for the fact that he was a four-star recruit and was ranked on ESPNU’s Top 100 for the 2011 class.

Anderson’s 2010-11 season, his senior year at Long Beach Poly, he scored 16.4 points per game, averaged 9.8 rebounds per game, and 2.4 assists per game. When your incoming recruit very nearly averaged a double-double in his previous season, you know you’ve got a good find.

The scouting reports on Anderson rave about his touch and shooting ability (shot 55% from the floor in 2010-11) and what Cali High Sports called an “impressive skill set”.” This same article goes on about his consistent scoring ability and range — to get a better idea of his capabilities, I suggest you read it.

Indications would seem to be that Anderson will start games. He was the star of the recruiting class before the Eagles picked up Heckmann, and probably still is because of his status as a Top 100 recruit. Anderson has a deep scoring ability that will obviously be very useful to the Eagles and, with his good size at 6-8, can also go down low for some points in the paint.

In short, I have every expectation that Anderson will not only start this year, or that he will be very productive, but that he will be one of the faces of the program for the next several years. Previously, on other teams, he has been the go-to guy, and it certainly seems like that is his destiny at Boston College. Anderson is an exciting player and one of the better incoming recruits we’ve had in years; it may not happen immediately, but he will lead this team and lead it well.