NCAA Basketball: Biggest takeaways from 2020 2K Empire Classic

Boston College Eagles

Positive – Have the guards to compete in the ACC

When it comes to the roster for Boston College, it was clearly lacking star power, with none of the players looking like All-ACC performers. It’s early but the team should be happy with its guard play, led by Jay Heath, Wynston Tabbs, and Makai Ashton-Langford. The trio played great and competed with Villanova’s dynamic guards for 40 minutes.

And even without Heath for the Rhode Island matchup, grad transfer Rich Kelly came off the bench and produced, scoring 20 combined points in the two games. There certainly are concerns about the frontcourt depth outside of Steffon Mitchell when it comes to the ACC but Boston College looks better than its projected bottom-two league finish.

Negative – Major missed opportunity against Villanova

Considering the circumstances of simply playing these games, it’s hard to judge harshly an underdog that isn’t able to pull off a major upset. Yet the Eagles were a few minutes away from doing just that with a top-3 team in Villanova, that will be competing for a 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Besides the obvious Bracketology implications, the biggest loser in this may be head coach Jim Christian. He’s viewed by plenty to be on the hot set and a win like this would’ve been huge for his job security. Instead, he gets a solid victory over Rhode Island but now needs to continue improving to avoid the bottom of the ACC.