*Sigh* The Fatty Liver Fixes BC Basketball
OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE.
You know what would be nice? If I could go two fucking weeks without having to completely rebuild one of BC’s shit-stained athletic programs. I literally just did this for the football team. And lo and behold, they went and beat #16 NC State. Coincidence? Absolutely.
Anyways, BC hoops returned to action a few weeks back with a small amount of hype, daring us to believe that they would maybe have a shot at being in the coveted “Last 50 Out” of the NCAA Tournament. Or at the very least, not find new ways to embarrass us. Well that hope was erased when they promptly turned in this “effort” on Monday:
Maine. Fucking Maine. Maine who has only won 16 games in the last 2 years combined. Maine who is ranked 351st out of 363 in the KenPom rankings of every D1 basketball program. Maine who is projected to finish last in the America East. Maine who hasn’t beaten a Power 5 school since I had braces and weighed 160 lbs. BC just lost a basketball game to that Maine.
Jesus. Christ.
I’ve said it before: I don’t care if BC loses. In fact, I’ve come to expect it. All I ask is that you don’t nationally embarrass us. Don’t break some terrible 50-year record or snap a historic losing streak for the other team. It’s really not that hard — just beat the teams you’re supposed to. Lose every other game if you want. Just don’t lose the gimmes. And we can’t even do that.
In the last 10 years alone, BC men’s basketball has lost to: Maine, BU, Holy Cross, UMass Lowell, Albany, Hartford (twice), Nicholls State, Fairfield, UC Irvine, Bryant, and my personal favorite, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis aka IUPUI.
How the hell do you lose to a college that has university in its name twice? Also, half of those teams are barely even colleges. We basically just lost to a bunch of random New England towns. If Cumberland, Rhode Island has a college we’re screwed.
But somehow, of that entire list, Maine might be the worst. Those other teams aren’t good, but at least they’ve been somewhat competitive in their own conferences. Maine routinely gets murdered by Binghamton. They’re one of 35 teams to have never made the NCAA Tournament.
And we lost to them. Rather decisively I might add. Oh and we paid them to beat us:
Now look, I wasn’t overly surprised by the loss. We narrowly won close contests against two bad teams to start the year, and I gave up on BC basketball in general years ago. The Twitter people who were hyping up this season like it would be something special are just too young and naive. We really haven’t fielded anything close to a competitive squad since Al Skinner was fired. They suck, likely will always suck, and are an embarrassment to the school and the game of basketball.
However, pretty much solely because it helps me get my word count up, here are my solutions to fix Boston College basketball:
Option 1: Drop down to Division III
I think a fresh start would do everyone some good here. Completely wipe the slate clean and begin anew against much easier competition. You may be wondering, “D3? Why not just drop down to Division II?” Candidly, I still think we would struggle against Division II competition. Northwest Missouri State is a goddamn wagon.
Actually, we’d likely struggle with Division III competition too, but it’s definitely a hell of a lot easier to beat Babson than Duke.
Also if you think about it, aren’t we kind of perfect for Division III? We’re a smaller school in New England (not exactly a basketball factory), and have no shortage of preppy 6’3” white guys with moppy hair who can kind of shoot threes. That’s a recipe for a D3 National Championship if there ever was one.
Option 2: Change Conferences
Ok, so maybe the administration isn’t ready to take such a drastic step and switch divisions entirely. Understandable. Denial is a process that takes time. Also they wouldn’t want to risk the massive revenue that the 5 season ticket holders bring in every year.
So before they admit it’s over and decide Division 1 BC basketball was a failed experiment, I have a compromise. Move to a different conference within Division 1. Let’s be real: BC isn’t a power five team. By most metrics, we’re barely a mid-major.
Either way, the ACC is clearly too much for us. So it’s best to just move somewhere we have a better chance to compete. I’ve done the research and have come up with three possibilities.
The America East Conference
Not a bad fit right? All east coast teams. Bunch of random New England schools scattered in there so travel would be easy. And we only lost to Maine by 5 just two days ago, so clearly we can compete in-conference. UVM and UMBC are usually pretty dominant here come tourney time, but there’s no reason we can’t eventually work our way into that third spot. Couple lucky bounces here and there and maybe we find ourselves wearing dancing shoes in March.
2. The Patriot League
Feel really good about this one. First off, I like the name — it’s kind of an homage to the Revolutionary War. Gels really well with the city of Boston.
Second, I like that we have some troops in the mix. Always an honor to play alongside the service academies.
Third, half of these schools are just BC, but in a more rural area. Bucknell is in the middle of nothing Pennsylvania but the students who go there are pretty much the same ones who go to BC. Preppy. Come from money. Very nice, but unintentionally douchey. Like to hit the books during the week and the bottle on the weekend. Colgate is the same deal in New York. Lehigh I know nothing about, but get the same vibe. You’ve even got BU, which is just a bunch of would-be BC students who couldn’t get in and had to settle. It’s a perfect match.
Fourth and final, I like the idea of having a cross-town rivalry with the Terriers. Could get like a really sad version of Duke-UNC going. It energizes the local area and gets the students a little more hyped up for the games.
3. The Atlantic Sun
This is sort of giving up on the program without fully committing. The Atlantic Sun would effectively be putting BC basketball out to pasture.
As you can see from the map above, almost all of the ASUN schools are located in the southeast. Do we have anything in common with any of these schools? No, not at all. But if we’re going purely off name, we are technically on the Atlantic and see the sun at least 4 months out of the year, so I think we qualify.
There’s a proud tradition of Bostonians suffering through the cold for 40 years then moving down south to enjoy their later years. Case in point, my parents now live 15 minutes from FGCU.
But I consider this to be a nice little retirement gift for BC basketball that they have neither earned nor deserve. Spend the majority of their year enjoying the sun and picking up a few dubs, while we all suffer the cold up here without the added irritant of having to watch BC play basketball. Wins all around.
Option 3: Replace the basketball program with men’s lacrosse
I’ve said it ad nauseam throughout this blog. What is the one thing BC has ample supply of, aside from stairs and sod? Kind of douchey preppy dudes!
Who plays lacrosse? KIND OF DOUCHEY PREPPY DUDES! It’s a match made in heaven. While New England doesn’t tend to churn out a lot of basketball players, we DO have a massive crop of lax talent to choose from. The fact that we don’t already have a varsity men’s lax team is kind of preposterous tbh.
And here’s the thing: I don’t even like lacrosse. I was always a baseball player. It’s a virtual guarantee that I wouldn’t watch one second of this team. So why replace a more popular sport with one that won’t generate a ton of buzz? BECAUSE WE WOULD FUCKING WIN AT IT.
BC does have a varsity women’s lacrosse team and they’re far and away the most successful team on campus/in the world:
Five straight National Championship appearances. One National Title. THAT is how you fucking do it. You’ll never see me writing a “Fixing BC Women’s Lacrosse” blog because they actually do their job and make the school proud. Also, I’d get cancelled for mansplaining.
But regardless, I think men’s lacrosse could become competitive very quickly. I personally went to high school with like 5 D1 lax players. The talent is here. The top guys want to go to a school like BC. We just need to give them the chance.
That’s it. Pick one of those options BC, I don’t care which one.
And so help me God if I have to write one of these for hockey in two weeks…
