Worst Year In Boston College Sports? And The Big Finish

Jeff: During the 2012-13 year, the football team stunk ... winning just two games. Neither of which were anything to get excited about since Maryland was playing their fourth string quarterback. The men's basketball team failed to make the postseason or win a game against an NCAA Tournament bound team all season. Finally, the hockey team won the Beanpot but the field was weak as none of the other Beanpot schools made the NCAA Tournament. Finally, in the NCAA tournament, the team was not even competitive, losing badly in the first round to Union.

This is easily the worst season for Boston College Athletics since the Eagles made the jump to the ACC, clearly showing that they considered athletics to be an important part of the University that would generate and spend a lot of money. But how far back do we have to go to find a worse year for BC sports or considering the money generated by the three revenue teams now? Can we just go ahead and say this is the worst year for BC sports ever?

Brian: Right or wrong, the success of any given athletics year is largely defined by the success of the revenue sports. If you threw in other Olympic sports like women's hockey -- which came within an OT goal of winning a National title -- this year would hardly be considered the worst. Then again, throw in baseball / softball and things start to look a little more dicey.

For Boston College specifically, I think fans look to football and men's basketball success first and foremost and then throw in the success of the men's hockey team as a secondary factor.

Back to the question, one would probably have to go back to 1998 to find as disappointing an athletics season as BC is coming off. Football won just four games -- two of those were against Rutgers and Temple which were about as good as Maine and Maryland (Rutgers was coming off an 0-11 year in 1997. Temple was 2-9 and was in the middle of a five year stretch where 3 wins was a max). The team did beat both Georgia Tech and Pittsburgh on the road that year, but those wins were the bookends to a year where BC lost six straight and seven of their final eight in TOB's second season.

Basketball finished the year 6-21 in Al Skinner's second year, good for the second lowest winning percentage in program history (and only better than the 1945-46 campaign where BC went 3-11 in just 14 games).

The hockey program won 27 games in 1998-99, but fell to Boston U. in the first round of the Beanpot. The team did win Hockey East and advance to the Frozen Four, but were bounced by Maine en route to the Black Bears second National title.

The good news, if there is any, is that BC turned things around shortly after the 1998-99 season. Hockey finally broke through two years later in 2000-01. Football would go on to have one of their most successful five year stretches in program history (2004-08) under TOB and then Jags and basketball won the Big East in 2001, going 27-5.

I don't expect hoops to win the ACC in the next couple of years. Nor do I expect football to match their success in the early to mid-2000s, but you can't help but think that we'll look back at 2012-13 as the year the revenue sports bottomed out. Oh and hockey will have ridiculously high expectations next year with all the underclassmen returning and a filthy incoming recruiting class.

Big Finish

Brian: Though the OKC Thunder had an early exit in this year's NBA Draft, Reggie Jackson "came through like a champ." Your thoughts?

Jeff: Reggie did play well, but needs to improve his outside shooting going forward.

Jeff: Who will ultimately have the better NBA career -- Olivier Hanlan or Reggie Jackson?

Brian: Hanlan still has a long way to go so I have to go with Jackson here.

Brian: The Eagles' 2013-14 men's basketball schedule is nearly complete. Which one home and one road/neutral game are you most looking forward to next season?

Jeff: I'm looking forward to Syracuse at home and BC playing VCU in Brooklyn to gauge where they are.

Jeff: Steele Divitto has been named to the Lott IMPACT Trophy watch list. Surprised?

Brian: A bit surprised Divitto is recognized over Pierre-Louis given KPL has the slightly better career stats. Not a huge surprise though.

Brian: Men's basketball at Purdue. Women's basketball at Wisconsin. The Eagles will go ___ in next year's Challenge.

Jeff: 1-1

Jeff: With football recruiting continuing to impress, do you think Addazio's first class will be ranked higher than Jags' first?

Brian: The Jags/TOB transitional class was comparatively small (18 commits) so BC will beat that on volume alone. Addazio will easily beat the 2007 class (ranked #46 by Rivals) and will come very close to or beat the 2008 class (#33 by Rivals).

Brian: Last one. Baseball wrapped up a disastrous season against Maryland by falling in extras on Saturday. Will Gambino be retained for next season?

Jeff: Probably?