ACC Basketball: Preseason rankings for 2019-20 season

By Brian Rauf | Sep 25, 2019

DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - FEBRUARY 05: Tre Jones #3 of the Duke Blue Devils drives past Jordan Chatman #25 of the Boston College Eagles during the second half of their game at Cameron Indoor Stadium on February 05, 2019 in Durham, North Carolina. Duke won 80-55. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images) /

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ANAHEIM, CA – MARCH 24: Derryck Thornton (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images) /

. Last Year: 14-17 (5-13). . Eagles . 14. team. 431

The writing is on the wall for Jim Christian. Through five seasons at Boston College, he is only 62-100, has never won eight conference games in a season, has never finished outside the bottom third of the ACC, and has only led the Eagles to one postseason appearance (2018 NIT).

He needs to win now. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen – especially now that Wynston Tabbs is out for the year with a knee injury.

It was already going to be a tough year for the Eagles as they had to replace Ky Bowman, who led them in points, assists, steals, and was second in rebounding last year. Now, returning big man Nik Popovic and Duke/USC transfer Derryck Thornton will have to do virtually everything for this seemingly lackluster group.

That 2018 NIT team – the only team Christian has had at BC that finished with a winning record – was led by the star backcourt of Bowman and Jerome Robinson, who ended up being the No. 13 pick in the 2018 draft by the Los Angeles Clippers. The combination of Thronton and Tabbs was supposed to at least come close to replicating the success of that style. Without Tabbs, the Eagles will be missing a significant scoring punch for which there’s no obvious replacement.

Unless a player or two has a breakout year for Boston College, this is looking like it will be Christian’s last year in charge.