Boston College 2012-13 Year in Review, Part II: Men’s Basketball

John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports

After the sort of season that the Boston College Eagles men’s basketball team had in the 2011-12 season, there was nowhere for them to go but up. A 33-game season is sometimes rocky and not without its highs and lows, and though the Eagles’ 2012-13 net result was nothing special, it was a step in the right direction.

Preseason

The 2011-12 Eagles finished at 9-22, getting blasted by the NC State Wolfpack in their final game of the season at the ACC Tournament. It had been a very rough reboot season full of nightmarish results. The prevailing sentiment entering the 2012-13 campaign was that things could not possibly get much worse, because they were already as bad as they could get. And seriously, when you’re getting rocked by Holy Cross, UMass, and Boston University, things probably aren’t going well.

Head coach Steve Donahue and anyone who followed this team knew that the group needed to take a step forward this past year. There was plenty of real estate in front of them, after all. The Eagles’ slow rise would, in their view, be helped by two things: the entry of two new strong freshmen in Olivier Hanlan and Joe Rahon, and the new-found experience of the sophomore nucleus, which includes Ryan Anderson and Dennis Clifford.

Boston College did suffer some attrition prior to the start of the season, however, and that generated some worry that perhaps the team’s progress would be stunted or even nullified. Amongst the departures were Matt Humphrey and Jordan Daniels, both of whom saw starting time in 2011-12. How would the Eagles get on without them, many asked.

The answer was perhaps not so clear in September and October of last year, but it became very much so as the year went on.