With this good advice in mind, I do try to write these game previews with an aim of being respectful and spotlighting the strengths of Duke's opponents. I usually maintain a tone that is straightforward, and often a little irreverent, but neither cocky nor gloomy.
That said, there's no nice way to put this: Boston College has been the lowest-ranked ACC team all season, and one of the least impressive teams from a power conference. Here are the ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, and SEC schools that are currently ranked #100 or worse by KenPom and/or NET.
KenPom
#101 Oregon, Big Ten
#103 Pittsburgh, ACC
#107 DePaul, Big East
#112 Marquette, Big East
#116 Utah, Big 12
#122 Maryland, Big Ten
#130 Penn State, Big Ten
#132 Georgia Tech, ACC
#142 Boston College, ACC
#147 Rutgers, Big Ten
NET
#102 Florida State, ACC
#106 South Carolina, SEC
#108 DePaul, Big East
#113 Oregon, Big Ten
#114 Pittsburgh, ACC
#117 Utah, Big 12
#123 Marquette, Big East
#133 Penn State, Big Ten
#143 Georgia Tech, ACC
#152 Boston College, ACC
#159 Rutgers, Big Ten
#160 Maryland, Big Ten
It's amusing to see Maryland that low. But back to BC: their best win is at home against #73 Syracuse, and that's as high as Quad 2, at least for now. The Eagles have two Quad 4 losses, the worse of which was at home against #281 Central Connecticut State, the other Blue Devils. (Their worst near-loss was a mere 4-point win against #329 New Haven, in their inaugural year as a Division I team.)
Earl Grant is in charge up at Chestnut Hill, and in four previous seasons, he's had a winning overall record only once, and has yet to finish higher than 10th in ACC play. After the Duke game, the last 9 games of their schedule are comparatively not too difficult -- in that group, Miami is their only opponent with a league record above .500, and they play BC twice -- but it's still tough to imagine that they could work their way from 2-6 and 13th in the conference to, say, a 9-9 record and a middle-tier finish.
Here's a look at Coach Grant's
roster. He has 8 returners, including 4 players who regularly start. Boden Kapke, who played at Butler the last two seasons, is the fifth starter. Kapke is one of the 8 newcomers, 4 incoming transfers and 4 true freshmen.
PROBABLE STARTERS
6-1 redshirt sophomore guard
Fred Payne #5 (15.2 pts, 3.8 reb, 3.0 ast)
6-5 redshirt junior guard
Donald Hand Jr #13 (14.4 pts, 5.1 reb, 1.4 ast)
6-11 junior post
Boden Kapke #33 (9.5 pts, 5.5 reb, 0.7 ast)
6-1 sophomore guard
Luka Toews #10 (6.4 pts, 1.2 reb, 1.9 ast)
6-9 redshirt sophomore forward
Jayden Hastings #22 (6.3 pts, 5.7 reb, 0.8 ast, 1.8 blk)
KEY RESERVES
6-4 grad guard
Chase Forte #9 (5.6 pts, 1.9 reb, 2.7 ast, 1.1 stl)
6-9 senior wing
Aidan Shaw #23 (3.9 pts, 6.7 reb, 0.7 ast, 1.4 blk)
6-5 freshman guard
Caleb Steger #30 (3.5 pts, 1.2 reb, 0.1 ast)
6-8 sophomore forward
Jason Asemota #55 (3.0 pts, 2.4 reb, 0.1 ast)
6-6 freshman wing
Marko Radunovic #88 (2.3 pts, 1.8 reb, 0.2 ast)
BENCH PLAYERS
6-9 sophomore forward
Kany Tchanda #8 (0.0 pts, 1.0 reb, 0.0 ast)
6-0 junior guard
Jack DiDonna #4 (0.0 pts, 0.0 reb, 0.0 ast)
6-2 sophomore guard
Will Eggemeier #21 (0.0 pts, 0.0 reb, 0.0 ast)
6-10 freshman forward
Jack Bailey #2
6-6 freshman guard
Akbar Waheed III #3
OTHER/INJURED
6-3 redshirt freshman guard
Nick Petronio #11 --
undisclosed injury
I've organized team stats and rankings in the comparison tables below, with thanks to
Sports Reference and other sources. The first rows are devoted to scoring, and while the Eagles don't put up many points, they also don't allow their opponents to put up many points either. This reflects their final scores this season; so far Clemson is the only team to beat them by more than 20 points, and they have not allowed 80 points in any game that ended in regulation. BC also averages almost 5 blocked shots per game, which is 27th nationally; starting frontcourt players Jayden Hastings and Boden Kapke, plus reserve wing Aidan Shaw, combine for about 4 of those blocks.
In honor of Beantown,
Bart Torvik has two jars of dry beans, one marked Duke and one marked Boston College, and he has determined that the Duke jar should have about 23 more beans in it. He predicts a final score of 78-55.
TABLE 1
| Category | Boston College (9-12, 2-6 ACC) | Duke (20-1, 9-0 ACC) |
| Points Scored | 68.1 (331st nationally) | 85.0 (30th) |
| Points Allowed | 68.4 (50th) | 64.3 (11th) |
| Scoring Margin (NCAA.org Stats) | -0.3 (244th) | +20.7 (7th) |
| Bench Points (NCAA.org Stats) | 18.8 (277th) | 22.4 (185th) |
| Fastbreak Points (NCAA.org Stats) | 6.8 (342nd) | 10.8 (168th) |
| Total Rebounds | 37.6 (87th) | 40.1 (31st) |
| --- Offensive Rebounds | 10.9 (200th) | 12.5 (69th) |
| --- Defensive Rebounds | 26.7 (57th) | 27.6 (26th) |
| --- Rebound Margin (NCAA.org Stats) | -0.6 (246th) | +10.0 (10th) |
| Assists | 11.4 (333rd) | 17.2 (38th) |
| Assist/Turnover Ratio (NCAA.org Stats) | 1.09 (251st) | 1.53 (41st) |
| Steals | 4.9 (347th) | 8.3 (61st) |
| Blocks | 4.9 (27th) | 3.8 (106th) |
| Turnovers | 10.5 (61st fewest) | 11.2 (130th fewest) |
| --- Turnover Margin (NCAA.org Stats) | +0.1 (215th) | -2.3 (61st) |
| Personal Fouls | 17.0 (122nd fewest) | 16.2 (72nd fewest) |
| Field Goal Percentage | 40.5% (341st) | 50.0% (19th) |
| 2-Point FG Percentage | 48.3% (326th) | 62.7% (4th) |
| 3-Point FG Percentage | 29.6% (344th) | 34.0% (183rd) |
| Free Throw Percentage | 65.8% (348th) | 71.7% (204th) |
TABLE 2
| Category | Boston College (9-12, 2-6 ACC) | Duke (20-1, 9-0 ACC) |
| NET Ranking (NCAA.org Stats) | #152 (NET Summary) | #2 (NET Summary) |
| --- Strength of Schedule | 95th | 9th |
| --- Quad 1 | 0-4 | 9-1 |
| --- Quad 2 | 1-3 | 4-0 |
| --- Quad 3 | 2-3 | 1-0 |
| --- Quad 4 | 6-2 | 6-0 |
| KenPom (Ken Pomeroy) | #142 | #3 |
| --- Offensive Efficiency | 274th | 4th |
| --- Defensive Efficiency | 51st | 4th |
| --- Tempo | 263rd | 240th |
| T-Rank (Bart Torvik) | #131 (T-Page) | #4 (T-Page) |
| --- Experience | 1.663 (266th) | 0.885 (363rd) |
| --- Talent | 56.881 (30th) | 91.153 (1st) |
| --- Effective Height | 81.410 (49th) | 81.498 (42nd) |
| --- Average Height | 77.671 (123rd) | 79.419 (2nd) |
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