It’s Time to End the 2020-21 Boston College Men’s Basketball Season

It is starting to feel more and more like we’ve seen the BC men’s basketball team play their last game for the season. And honestly? That’s as it should be. In the past week, BC has fired head coach Jim Christian, announced the suspension of Wynston Tabbs for the remainder of the year due to COVID policy violations, and postponed BC’s next 2 games due to COVID protocols within the program. This comes after BC postponed 4 games between January 20th and 30th, also due to COVID protocols.

BC now has 3 games left in the season that have yet to be postponed (Notre Dame on 2/27, FSU on 3/3, and Miami on 3/5). The Eagles have won just 3 games this season, have gone 1-9 in ACC play, and have postponed almost as many games as they’ve played in 2021.

We’re still living through a pandemic, and every college athlete playing right now is putting their health at risk to play the sport they love and entertain their team’s fans. Sure, you can say that BC’s players may want to finish out the season, but they can’t do that at the risk of their own health, the health of their teammates, and the health of their opponents. And a condition of playing this season was adhering to COVID safety guidelines, which clearly isn’t happening here.

This team has been put on pause twice in the last 28 days. One of BC’s star players has been suspended from the team for violating BC’s COVID safety policies. This shows that players aren’t taking COVID precautions seriously enough and/or BC isn’t able to keep them safe. Continuing to play rewards negligent behavior and potentially puts teammates and opponents at risk. Yes, players have to test negative to play, but I sure wouldn’t feel comfortable playing against a team with BC’s recent COVID track record.

Ending BC’s season now would also allow both administration and players to focus on the path forward, rather than living in a constant “will we or won’t we?” for the next 16 days. It feels likely that some of the remaining 3 games will end up getting postponed too, so why drag it out? Shutting it down would give Pat Kraft the ability to focus 100% on figuring out what he wants in a new head coach, talk to the players about what’s been missing under Christian, and prepare to go after the candidates he wants. It also would give players who want to transfer more time to make that decision, put feelers out, and decide where they want to go.

The Eagles certainly aren’t going to beat FSU this season, and they likely aren’t going to beat Notre Dame or even Miami considering they are coming off days without practice, players are potentially recovering from COVID, and they are without Tabbs. And even if they somehow managed to stay healthy, pull of 3 wins, and end the year 6-13 and 4-9, what difference does that really make? Morale is already low, and losing more games isn’t going to help making this head coach vacancy any more appealing. It is time to count this season out and start focusing on the future of BC men’s basketball.