Boston College Basketball 2019-20 Season Recap: Part 1 - Preseason and Beginning of Schedule

The first of a three part series breaking down the Boston College Men's Basketball 2019-20 season

Earlier this week, Boston College Men's Basketball ended their season with a thud, dropping their second round game to Notre Dame 80-58. With the season now in the books, let's roll back to the beginning of the season and journey from the beginning of the year to the end. To start our three part series we will look at the preseason and beginning of the 2019-20 season.

Preseason

BC started off the summer with huge news by acquiring Derryck Thornton (Duke/USC), one of the prizes of the grad transfer portal. The once highly sought after guard was defensive minded first, but many hoped he could also add some veteran pop to the lineup. 

However, before the season even started, Jim Christian received devastating news. Star guard Wynston Tabbs underwent left knee surgery, an injury that he battled with the season before, and would be lost for the season. Tabbs looked to be the offensive spark the team needed with the departure of Ky Bowman to the NBA. Now the Eagles would have to hope that the their two guards true freshman Jay Heath and Thornton would be able to match that productivity.

The Season Begins

Going into the season, projections looked grim. BC was predicted to finish at or near the bottom of the ACC. Even worse there were many sites/columns that had BC losing every ACC game. 

The 2019-20 season then kicked off with a conference game against Wake Forest. Boston College looked strong, especially on defense, and grabbed their first ACC win, 77-70. For the team it must have been reassuring to get that monkey off their back quickly. On top of that Derryck Thornton looked like he could add an offensive spark, scoring 23 points. The Eagles followed that up with a nice road win against USF (74-60)  and a convincing defensive win against High Point 59-33. 

However even starting the season 3-0, there were some troubling trends that started to emerge. First, the Eagles as a team struggled with the three point shot. Against High Point they only shot 12% from beyond the arc, and against Wake they only shot 33%. Secondly their free throw shooting was an issue. They missed ten free throws against Wake Forest, and shot 67% against South Florida. While neither of these issues hurt them early, they would all be trends that continued all year. 

Boston College's strong start quickly faded as they got trounced by Belmont at home 100-85 to start the Gotham Classic. In a game they were never really in, Adam Kunkel scored 30 points as the Bruins shot 57% from three point range. After a relatively easy win over Eastern Washington, BC was shut down by a DePaul team that finished exactly .500, and two more losses to good St. Louis and Richmond teams. 

Then in what was arguably BC's worse loss of the season, Northwestern a team that lost to Merrimack earlier in the season, came in to Conte Forum and beat a BC team in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. BC went 8-27 from three point range, while the Wildcats shot nearly 60% from the field. 

At this point of the season, sitting at 4-5, the outlook was looking grim for Jim Christian and his team. The Eagles were struggling against programs they should be beating, and the BC offense couldn't find much of a rhythm, especially from three. The losses were starting to pile up, and if they went into ACC play with a sub .500 record they could be in deep trouble.

But on the brighter side, Jay Heath looked to be a revelation, scoring in double digits in all but the USF game. Nik Popovic had his moments as well, scoring 23 points against Belmont and 19 against Wake Forest. While Derryck Thornton was a tenacious defender and a good veteran presence around some of the younger players. 

Tomorrow we will finish off the out of conference schedule and look at the beginning of the true ACC slate.