Boston College 2011-12 in Review, Part II: Men’s Basketball

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A year of frustration and growing pains ended at 9-22 (4-12). It was very bad, but still managed to catch a few ACC observers off-guard (mainly because the Eagles found a way not to go 0-16 in the conference).

A season of ups and down, mostly downs, in the standings also saw players emerging and sinking into the background. For example, Patrick Heckmann started off the season on fire, taking games over and putting up big numbers, but he became injured almost right away and eventually got sick with mono. Over the course of the season, it seemed as though he lost his game and Coach Donahue relegated him to the bench. Meanwhile, the most prominent player to rise up was Ryan Anderson, who by the end of the season became the Eagles’ best player and most successful rebounder. Just about everyone else had their hits or misses as expected.

Following the season, we knew that there was not going to be much natural roster attrition (as in, people graduating), since there were so few seniors. Sure, we lost minor role-players or bench-warmers like John Cahill and Peter Rehnquist, but if anyone else was to go, it’d be via transfer. By the spring, we found out that two such players were junior Matt Humphrey and sophomore Gabe Moton. Humphrey sat out 2010-11 due to transfer but had graduated at the end of the 2011-12 school year, so he could leave and find a new opportunity as he saw fit. For Moton, his transfer is possibly related to playing time and role on the team. His minutes on an inexperienced team barely increased from his freshman year and with new players like Olivier Hanlan on their way in, Moton was destined to be the odd-man-out.

When it comes to the roster, 2012-13 isn’t going to look much different than 2011-12. A few new faces will arrive while a few old ones will depart, but none are irreplaceable. The core of this young Boston College team remains, and as we move forward to the next school year, we will find out if the hard lessons they’ve learned this year sunk in. It was a rough season, but a necessary one for the kids to grow up and discover what life is like in the ACC. We’ll all have to wait until November to see what has or has not changed, but in the meantime, we can all hope that the players are spending the conclusion of this academic year getting acquainted with the weight room.

Tomorrow: your national champion men’s hockey team