With news that Boston College will be sitting out this year's ACC/Big Ten Challenge, we can start to piece together next year's schedule. Here's what we know:
ACC Schedule (18)
-- Conference home-and-homes with Syracuse, Notre Dame, Miami and Pittsburgh
-- Conference home games against North Carolina, Wake Forest, N.C. State, Virginia and Louisville
-- Conference road games at Florida State, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Duke and Virginia Tech
Non-conference Schedule (13)
-- Boston College will play in the 2014 Puerto Rico Tip-Off Classic from November 20-23 in San Juan. The Eagles will be joined by College of Charleston, Connecticut, Dayton, George Mason, New Mexico, Texas A&M and West Virginia.
-- Boston College hosts USC on the back end of the home-and-home
And here are a few assumptions:
-- Boston College will almost certainly continue rivalry series with Providence and Harvard with both games at home.
-- Boston College will likely continue the series with UMass. Hopefully this game is played on a campus and NOT in a Good for New England (TM) game at the Garden.
-- Boston College will play at least one school from America East, likely New Hampshire or Maine.
That brings us up to seven non-conference games, leaving six slots to be filled. Given where this team is at and with BC already having a pretty difficult ACC slate, my guess is that these five games will be against the cupcake-iest New England teams BC can find to balance the schedule; a plan of which I am 100% on board. Some possibilities:
Fordham (10-21) -- The Rams finished dead last in a very top-heavy Atlantic-10 last year. Fordham won just two conference games all season -- over George Washington and Rhode Island.
Northeastern (11-21) -- Things seemed to be headed in the right direction, with former BC assistant Bill Coen leading the Huskies to an NIT appearance in 2012-13. But Northeastern limped to an 11-21 (7-9 CAA) finish last season, including early-season losses to BU, Stony Brook and Fairfield.
UMass-Lowell (10-18) -- The River Hawks went 10-18 in their first season at the Division I level. BC gives former staffer Pat Duquette a game. Lowell had a largely forgettable first season competing in America East, but not as forgettable as ...
New Hampshire (6-24) -- The Wildcats won just six games last season. The two teams last met at the start of the 2011-2 season. BC eked out a 67-64 victory.
Maine (6-23) -- Another America East team coming off a very forgettable season. BC hasn't faced the Black Bears since an inexplicable 52-51 loss back in 2009-10.
Cornell (2-26) -- Troll. the. hardest.
Given what we know and the above assumptions, BC's 2014-15 schedule could look something like this (including final 2013-14 kenpom ranking).
Non-Conference (10) | Puerto Rico Tip-Off Classic (3 of) | Conference (18) | |||
32 | Harvard | 8 | Connecticut | 1 | Louisville |
51 | Providence | 31 | New Mexico | 4 | Virginia |
54 | vs. Massachusetts | 38 | Dayton | 13 | @ Duke |
163 | USC | 68 | West Virginia | 16 | Syracuse |
121 | Texas A&M | 16 | @ Syracuse | ||
204 | Fordham | 137 | George Mason | 19 | Pittsburgh |
205 | Northeastern | 206 | College of Charleston | 19 | @ Pittsburgh |
325 | UMass Lowell | 27 | North Carolina | ||
329 | New Hampshire | 41 | @ Florida State | ||
338 | Maine | 50 | @ Clemson | ||
341 | Cornell | 55 | North Carolina State | ||
69 | Miami | ||||
69 | @ Miami | ||||
99 | Notre Dame | ||||
99 | @ Notre Dame | ||||
109 | @ Georgia Tech | ||||
118 | Wake Forest | ||||
192 | @ Virginia Tech |
Your turn. What other opponents would you want to see on the Eagles 2014-15 schedule?