Tomorrow Boston College begins 76 Classic Tournament play with their opening round matchup against Saint Louis. The team flew out to California yesterday and Coach Donahue had a special surprise for his young team -- Los Angeles Angels manager Mike Scioscia. Quite the treat for a team that has four players from California and probably have watched the Angels when they were home.
Coach Donahue took to Twitter to tweet out about the meeting that took place at the player's hotel:
"Message to the team was something his mom told him after high school: To be a leader, you first need to lead yourself."
For a team lacking an identity this is pretty powerful stuff. After the epic walloping from Holy Cross and UMass, any inspirational quotes to fire up the team. Did he bring up bunting, playing hit and run, and the benefits of small ball? Nah. Donahue had more to say:
"Also talked about bouncing back from failure. Hitting .300 means you got out 7/10 AB. Need to stay positive, always think you'll succeed."
This team has certainly seen some early failure, and I certainly like the baseball analogy. Let's just hope this team will win more than 3 out of every 10 games. Getting Scioscia in after these early struggles is a nice perk to hopefully boost this teams morale and confidence before the tournament. This seems like just another way to make his California players feel more at home with the Eagles and continue to lay more in roads for future recruiting trips to the West Coast.
Scioscia stresses staying positive. Advice I hope not only the hoops team, but the fanbase follows this season.