Boston College Basketball: Charting The Eagles Scholarship Situation

With yesterday's news that Point Pleasant Beach PG Matt Farrell committed to Boston College (though it is still unclear whether Farrell joins the program as a preferred walk-on or scholarship player), let's take a look at the hoops scholarship situation.

It's somewhat instructive to first look at the scholarship situation Donahue inherited when he took the reins in 2010-11. Just how exactly did the scholarship situation become so unbalanced?

Here's the scholarship breakdown heading into Donahue's first season:

	2010-11	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14
1	Gabriel Moton	Gabriel Moton	Gabriel Moton	Gabriel Moton
2	Matt Humphrey	Matt Humphrey	Matt Humphrey	OPEN
3	Reggie Jackson	Reggie Jackson	OPEN	OPEN
4	Dallas Elmore	Dallas Elmore	OPEN	OPEN
5	Biko Paris	OPEN	OPEN	OPEN
6	Corey Raji	OPEN	OPEN	OPEN
7	Joe Trapani	OPEN	OPEN	OPEN
8	Josh Southern	OPEN	OPEN	OPEN
9	Cortney Dunn	OPEN	OPEN	OPEN
10	OPEN	OPEN	OPEN	OPEN
11	OPEN	OPEN	OPEN	OPEN
12	OPEN	OPEN	OPEN	OPEN
13	OPEN	OPEN	OPEN	OPEN
Walk-On	Danny Rubin	Danny Rubin	Danny Rubin	Danny Rubin
Walk-On	Peter Rehnquist	Peter Rehnquist	OPEN	OPEN
Walk-On	Nick Mosakowski	OPEN	OPEN	OPEN
Walk-On	John Cahill	OPEN	OPEN	OPEN
Walk-On	Chris Kowalski	OPEN	OPEN	OPEN

Donahue went into that first season with just eight active scholarship players, four below the NCAA limit of 13. Oregon transfer Matt Humphrey sat out the 2010-11 season per NCAA transfer rules. It didn't help matters that the three players recruited for the 2010 class -- Brady Heslip, Kevin Noreen and Papa Samba Ndao -- went elsewhere after the school parted ways with Al Skinner. The 2010 recruiting class of Heslip, Noreen and Ndao were backfilled by Humphrey, Moton and Rubin (walk-on).

As you can see, when five of eight scholarship players are seniors, this creates a rather large scholarship imbalance for 2011-12 and every four years thereafter. It didn't help matters that the non-seniors on the roster in 2010-11 didn't stick around for much longer after that. After Humphrey sat out in 2010-11, he played one season for BC before transferring again to West Virginia. Dallas Elmore left the program following the 2010-11 season and Moton transferred out the year after.

Fast forward to present day, where the scholarship situation looks like this:

	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17
1	Garland Owens	G. Owens	G. Owens	G. Owens
2	Darryl Hicks	Darryl Hicks	Darryl Hicks	Darryl Hicks
3	Will Magarity	Will Magarity	Will Magarity	Will Magarity
4	Olivier Hanlan	Olivier Hanlan	Olivier Hanlan	OPEN
5	Joe Rahon	Joe Rahon	Joe Rahon	OPEN
6	Alex Dragicevich	Alex Dragicevich	OPEN	OPEN
7	Eddie Odio	Eddie Odio	OPEN	OPEN
8	KC Caudill	KC Caudill	OPEN	OPEN
9	Ryan Anderson	Ryan Anderson	OPEN	OPEN
10	Lonnie Jackson	Lonnie Jackson	OPEN	OPEN
11	Dennis Clifford	Dennis Clifford	OPEN	OPEN
12	Pat Heckmann	Pat Heckmann	OPEN	OPEN
13	Danny Rubin	OPEN	Matt Farrell?	Matt Farrell?
Walk-On	OPEN	Matt Farrell	OPEN	OPEN
Walk-On	Sam Donahue	Sam Donahue	Sam Donahue	Sam Donahue
Walk-On	Steve Perpiglia	S. Perpiglia	S. Perpiglia	S. Perpiglia
Walk-On	Drew Jacobs	Drew Jacobs	Drew Jacobs	OPEN
Walk-On	John Cain Carney	John Cain Carney	OPEN	OPEN

While Donahue has done a decent job of filling the roster with scholarship players (BC will presumably be at the scholarship max for the first time in years at the start of next season), the program is still headed towards a huge roster turnover in 2015-16, needing to replace a majority of the scholarship players starting in 2015-16 (7 of 13). That class becomes one larger should Hanlan jump to the NBA a year early.

Perhaps there's some roster attrition next season, freeing up a scholarship, or Farrell turns into a serviceable ACC player, but four years have gone by and the scholarship imbalance has hardly been addressed. If Hanlan turns pro a year early, Donahue will be left needing to fill eight of the 13 scholarships for 2015-16; one less than the situation he found himself facing four years ago before the start of the 2011-12 season.

Graphics via testudotimes.com