BC Basketball Fans: Are You Less Optimistic About The Future?

Greg M. Cooper-USA TODAY Sports

I’ve traveled far and wide in Boston College social media, from Twitter to Facebook and all sorts of forums in between. In so doing, I have encountered the opinions of a great many BC basketball fans who have taken to the interwebs to voice themselves on the state of the program. It seems to me right now that Eagles fans are dividing up into not just two, but three different camps about this team and where it is heading:

Optimistic. Those Boston College fans who still think that this basketball team’s difficulties now will lead to a payoff in the near future, perhaps as soon as next season. This group is strongly supportive of head coach Steve Donahue and fully expects BC to continue to improve under his tenure. They don’t believe BC basketball is off-course per se because they see a more competitive product than the one BC had last year. In their view, the Eagles will “put it all together” in the years to come and there is no cause for alarm.

Neutral. The neutral BC basketball fans are hesitant to speculate on the future of the program, or are hedging their bets. This bunch can clearly see the fork in the road coming up and can envision the program going either of those two ways without it being much of a logical reach. Taking a step forward is treated as a realistic possibility rather than a certainty, though perhaps for a few it’s more wishful thinking than concrete analysis. For these people, it is important not to throw dirt on this team but it is also important to be cautious after going 18-33 since the new team was put together.

Pessimistic. Those BC fans who consider themselves pessimistic see this team as not coming far enough and ultimately think they will fall short of the goals they set when they were incoming freshmen. Many of these folks see the team’s progress as too slow and can’t see BC making the quick transition to a winning team after almost two years of losing. The pessimists among us are down on Steve Donahue and the talent on the team. While most of these people gave Donahue and the players a chance, simply put, they now believe this experiment will fail.

Boston College basketball fans seem to be shading towards the second and third of these groups, with the true optimists thinning out their ranks. Myself, I am trending towards the neutral group. When this new team came together, I thought I had a clear view of their collective ceiling, but now, I don’t know what we will say about the core class when they’re seniors. I lack the evidence to say that they won’t make a major upwards move, but I also don’t have enough to say that they will. My succinct view on this basketball team is that I don’t know what to think. It’s much appreciated that they fight hard until the end in games (even in futile efforts like the North Carolina contest) and I do think there are some good roster pieces, but I can’t say what their future holds, and right now, I’m less game for speculation.

Where do most Boston College fans stand now: optimistic, neutral, or pessimistic?