Boston, MA
Next Up – Boston College
You might look at Boston College and think, well, they’re 13-9 and in 12th place in the ACC. Why should I worry about them?
To which the correct answer is: you are misreading the situation badly. First, let’s look at where Boston College has been the last several years.
- 2022-23: 16-17
- 2021-22: 13-20
- 2020-21: 4-16
- 2019-20: 13-19
- 2018-19: 14-17
Just listing the records doesn’t begin to explain the rot.
Boston College fired Al Skinner in 2010, replacing him with Cornell’s Steve Donahue who lasted four seasons, finishing 54-76.
Jim Christian was even worse, with a career record of 78-132 and there was some fairly open dissent on his last team.
So far, Grant is 42-46 at BC and the Eagles have some opportunities down the stretch. After Duke, Boston College gets Louisville and Miami at home, then FSU and NC State on the road. Virginia will be a home game as will Pitt and the Eagles close out with Miami and Louisville on the road.
Oddsmakers don’t decide the games, but BC should have good odds against Louisville home and away. Win those two and they’re at 15 wins. If they win two more, they’ll have 17 for the season. They’ll get at least one more shot in the ACC Tournament too.
So a winning season is within this team’s reach and BC hasn’t had a winning season since 2017-18. And before that, it was 2010-11. And before that it was 2008-09.
So a winning season, even barely a winning season, is a big deal for this team. It hasn’t happened often lately.
Since taking over in 2021-22, Grant, fully aware that he can’t yet attract top-flight talent, has essentially emulated Gary Williams when he coached at Maryland. Williams, you may recall, inherited a disastrous situation at his alma mater. He too could not get top-flight talent and looked for guys who played hard as hell and who fit his system.
Which is what Grant has done. Look at his core group: Jaeden Zackery, Quentin Post, Claudell Harris, Devin McGlockton, Prince Aligbe, Mason Madsen, Chas Kelley and Donald Hand.
We might be missing some data here, but our guess is that the highest rated player in that group was probably Donald Hand and he was a four-star recruit.
But all of them play very hard, and they play together.
We always look at the guys who get the most minutes as the starters, at least functionally, and that’s Zackery, Post, Harris, McGlockton and Aligbe.
These are the schools that were after Zackery out of high school and after his one year at a JUCO: Central Connecticut State, Coppin State, Wagner, Maine, North Texas, Sam Houston State, and Wisconsin-Milwaukee
He’s not a phenomenal talent but he’s averaging 11.6 points, 3.2 rebounds and 4.3 apg. He’s very solid.
Post is 7-0 and 235 and while he’s a solid big man, he’s an excellent three point shooter, hitting 43.3 percent, which means you can’t leave him alone outside – which also means that Kyle Filipowski may not be able to hang out inside defensively. He’s getting 16.4 ppg and 7.8 rebounds.
Harris is a 6-3 junior who transferred from Charleston Southern. They brought him in hoping he would score well at BC too. Well, so far so good. He’s getting 14 ppg and 3.1 boards. He seems to be a good fit.
McGlockton is a 6-7, 230 lb. sophomore who is getting 10.8 points and 6.4 boards.
And Aligbe isn’t particularly good on offense but he’s got the potential to be a great defender. A 6-7 sophomore, he was a high school teammate of Chet Holmgren and Jalen Suggs.
Mason Madsen is a transfer from Cincinnati. He is playing a little less this season than he did last season but he’s a very dangerous three point shooter (44.4 percent).
Chas Kelley is a 6-3 sophomore from Texas who doesn’t shoot particularly well but who has become a starter. Like Aligbe, he’s got the potential to be a great defender.
The final rotation guy is Donald Hand, Jr. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because his father played at Virginia. Hand sat out last year after an injury so he’s really just gotten started. BC has high hopes for him but it may take a little longer for him to get back to who he was before the injury.
We’ll say this about Boston College. We thought that if Notre Dame was a little better than they are this season that, well, Duke gave them chances to get back into that game.
Notre Dame couldn’t do it.
Boston College? Boston College could do that.
They’re not an immensely talented team but they keep coming. They don’t give up. And when they find a seam, they know how to exploit it.
If Duke doesn’t match the intensity that Boston College is likely to bring, this could be a long night.
We’ll add links as we find them.
Boston, MA
Red Sox Icon David Ortiz Urges Boston To ‘Make It Rain’ For Free-Agent Slugger
The Boston Red Sox hive mind doesn’t always come to a perfect agreement on what they want the team to do. That is, of course, unless David Ortiz is asking for it.
A three-time World Series champion, Hall of Famer, and one of the most clutch players of all time, Ortiz is unquestionably on the Red Sox’s all-time Mount Rushmore. Even though he retired in 2016, he’s still closely woven into the fabric of the organization.
Ortiz sees what we all do: this Red Sox team is close to being ready to contend for the playoffs, but there’s one key ingredient missing. He made his feelings known about what he hopes the front office does between now and Opening Day to address that issue.
On Saturday, Ortiz relayed a simple message to the Red Sox: spend whatever it takes to get one more big bat.
“There’s still some guys out there that we can still go for, and I think we have a really good front office,” Ortiz said in an appearance on NESN. “To put a good lineup together nowadays is not that difficult. What you got to do is just make it rain, and you can go pick a few guys. Now pitching, on the other hand, is the toughest thing to put together.
“We got pitching. Pitching can always stop good offenses. The playoff is a playoff pitching (staff) we got right now. We line up a couple of thunders in the lineup to help (Rafael Devers) and the rest of them boys — one good bat would do.”
Ortiz and NESN host Tom Caron both strongly hinted at the end of the interview who that big bat could be: former Houston Astros All-Star Alex Bregman. Manager Alex Cora also signaled earlier in the day that Bregman would be a great fit in Boston.
Bregman isn’t quite Ortiz, but he does have one thing on him: the career record for OPS at Fenway Park. He has a wild 1.245 mark in 98 plate appearances in Boston throughout his career.
When David Ortiz asks for something, the Red Sox would usually be wise to follow through. And it seems he wants Bregman. Will that move the needle in the suites at Fenway?
More MLB: Red Sox Predicted To Land Ex-Padres $28 Million Gold Glover In Free Agency Surprise
Boston, MA
Greater Boston enjoys a light snow, travel not significantly impacted – The Boston Globe
The snow showers come from a weakening system approaching from the Great Lakes that tapped into some of the moisture from a strong storm passing south of New England.
The region was spared the worst precipitation of the storm thanks to persistent sub-freezing temperatures earlier this week, which pushed it south toward its current location off the coast of North Carolina, Nocera said. New England’s light snowfall is on the northern fringes of the storm.
Nocera added that this weekend’s “decorative snow” will not significantly impact ground travel.
The Massachusetts Port Authority issued a travel advisory for flight delays at Boston Logan International Airport. According to the flight tracking website Flight Aware, as of around 1:00 p.m. 212 flights were delayed at Boston Logan and another 15 were cancelled.
Margo Griffin, a teaching associate at the University of Cambridge in England, was initially worried about driving through the snow on her way to get coffee in Cambridge, but said the view from the Charles River was worth the trek.
“I thought it might be a problem, but I just decided to go ahead with the plan, and I’m enjoying walking through the snow,” Griffin said.
Other Boston-area residents who spoke to the Globe Saturday morning were happy to wake up to the winter scene on Saturday.
“I am feeling wonderful about the snow. I haven’t seen it in a long time,” said Barbara Delollis, a communications lead at Harvard Business School.
Delollis already made snow day plans.
“We want to go out and have some fun in the snow, and take a lot of pictures and just remember this moment, because we don’t know how much more snowfall we’re going to see in the Boston area anymore with climate change,” Delollis said.
Talia, a Cambridge resident, said that the snow had no effect on her plans to attend synagogue with her two-year-old son Saturday morning.
“It feels nice and seasonal, which is cool because climate change is terrifying,” she said.
Snowstorms can still occur, despite warming temperatures from climate change, Nocera said. Although Saturday’s snowfall cannot guarantee heavy snow this winter, there is a slightly higher chance of snow towards the end of the month as cold temperatures ease.
Materials from previous Globe stories were used in this report.
Boston, MA
Boston College drops Hockey East contest to Merrimack
The second-ranked Boston College men’s hockey team suffered its first home loss of the season, falling to Merrimack by a score of 5-2 in Hockey East action on Friday night at Kelley Rink. The Eagles jumped out to a 2-0 lead early in the second, but the Warriors scored the next five. BC falls to 12-4-1 overall and 6-3-1 in Hockey East, while Merrimack improves to 8-10-1 overall and 4-5-1 in league play. The Eagles opened the scoring midway through the first period when Oskar Jellvik one-timed the rebound off an Aram Minnetian shot that was saved by the Merrimack goaltender. Minnetian’s shot fell right into the path of Jellvik for the quick shot into the open net to put the Eagles in front. BC added to its lead shortly into the second period when Brady Berard scored a short-handed goal. Merrimack responded 32 seconds later with a power-play goal to get on the board, before scoring the game-tying goal less than one minute after that. The Warriors took the lead nearly three minutes later when Merrimack scored its third goal of the period. The Warriors scored twice in the third period to push their lead to three. Jacob Fowler made 23 saves while Nils Wallstrom had 27 stops for Merrimack.
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