Boston College’s Earl Grant on DeMarr Langford’s NBA future, recruiting and the ACC arms race.
Earl Grant, for the most part a lifelong Southeast Guy, doesn’t mind the seasons. Actually kind of likes them. He liked it when the weather got a little chippy during the few years he spent in south-central Kansas, and he didn’t think his first New England winter was all that bad, despite the warnings to batten down every available hatch.
“It’s one of those places when it snows,” Grant says, “the sun’s still out.”
There’s a metaphor in there somewhere for Boston College men’s basketball, a program long stumbling through blizzard conditions in the ACC, for which 45-year-old Grant is trying to provide some light.
And there have been flickers, anyway, toward the end of Grant’s first season at the helm and heading into an offseason where any developmental strides must be made. Thirteen wins in 2020-21 were no one’s idea of a rousing success … but a bit of a late-year revival ended with the Eagles one overtime loss away from the ACC tournament semifinals. Though there’s one significant stay-or-go decision yet to be officially made, it’s likely that Boston College will bring back its top three scorers and add a top 35-ish class of freshmen and transfers to the mix. Construction on the $50 million, 40,000-square-foot Hoag Basketball Pavilion began in March, a long-overdue resource for a team attempting to survive in the ACC.
“I know they probably needed to do that years ago,” Grant says, “but they’re doing it now.”
Again: The metaphors abound. So The Athletic spoke to Grant about more tangible basketball matters such as recruiting footprint, finding more shooting and the impact of a new athletic director after the departure of Patrick Kraft, plus much more.
In terms of advantages or challenges, what did you only find out about Boston College and the job of Boston College men’s basketball coach once you were in it?
There were maybe some more challenges that maybe people dealt with in the past. I know for me, there’s a $50 million facility that’s already started. I’ve been there for a year, and they’re working every day out there to get us a state-of-the-art practice facility — player lounge, weight room, coaches lounge, nutrition center. The atmosphere has shifted.
In terms of just day-to-day at Boston College, it’s an amazing city. We got great people we work with. I think every program deals with things, but I played Division II and junior college, so you kind of learn to use what you got. Most times, you got plenty. More than what you give yourself credit for. So I think we got a lot here. Obviously, with the new $50 million facility coming soon, that really helps us. But there isn’t any challenge that jumps out to me, where I didn’t know that before I got here. I pretty much knew what I was getting into. We played here when I was at Clemson for four straight years. I’d been coming to Boston for seven straight years (coaching in the CAA) to play Northeastern. So I kind of had a feel for the city and the school.
When that facility opens up where do you think that puts Boston College, in terms of that “arms race” in the ACC, at least?
Obviously it’s already helped us being out recruiting for 2022. Having that to sell, ‘Hey, this is your facility that you are going to experience,’ I think that helped us. In terms of the arms race, in a conference, whether it was my time at Wichita State, or Winthrop, or Clemson, College of Charleston, there’s some programs that are going to be considered at the top, there’s some that’s considered at the bottom, and then there’s a lot of them in the middle. I think that what that does for us is just put us in the mix of some of the best programs in the league on paper. In terms of what they say we have on paper, I think that put us right there in the middle.
But in terms of the arms race, we’re not going to ever have what some of these programs are going to have. We have to be OK with that. So that’s why it’s so important to be able to go out and evaluate kids that fit the DNA of our program, holistically. ‘There’s a good Boston College guy. There’s a good guy that would love to be in Boston. There’s a guy that would love to play in the ACC that maybe isn’t getting recruited by everybody in the league.’ The DNA of Boston College, the history of having a Reggie Jackson up here, a Jared Dudley, they didn’t have the whole ACC going after them. But those guys had a chip on their shoulder and they were tough. So I think that’s what we have to do because, yeah, we probably won’t have what the top four teams have. And that’s OK.
To that end, I remember talking to Pat Kraft a little bit after you were hired. His theory was, I want a guy who can recruit the ACC footprint, because that’s who we are. How has that evolved for you? How has that developed? When you look at where you are putting your emphasis, where you are looking for those guys, how has that developed over the first cycle and a half or so?
There’s some good players up here. So we’re starting right here in our backyard, looking for guys that fit BC, that want to stay home, that want to be a part of what we’re doing.
And then in the first class that we signed, our class didn’t indicate that we are focusing on the Northeast, but we are focused on the Northeast — we just happened to get guys who weren’t from the Northeast. We didn’t get the guys that we tried to get from the Northeast, so we ended up going back to the Boston College blueprint. We went to Minneapolis. Troy Bell is from out there. We went to Virginia Beach. Down in Virginia — Tyrese Rice. We went to Houston. They’ve had a couple guys from Texas that played at Boston College and were successful. We went to Toronto. We just went and found guys that addressed the needs that we needed to fill, and they just happened to be all across the country. We still try to recruit the Northeast. We’re recruiting them and we’re recruiting guys nationally. So we’ll see. If some of them want to stay home, that would be amazing. But if they don’t, we still have to sign a couple guys.
Assuming DeMarr Langford doesn’t stay in the draft, you might have your top three scorers back, plus another big piece in Quinten Post. You won 13 games last year, but were you able to keep that core intact in this transitory era of the portal. What do you think these guys have bought into that have them coming back?
I think they like each other. I think they like Boston College. I think they like the idea of trying to build something special and leave a legacy. So it’s bigger than them. We do have one still in the NBA Draft process. And he is a pro, at some point. He’s a good player. So we’ll see what happens there. But in terms of just bringing back that core, I just think they like each other, man. I think it’s a good group of guys that care about each other. And then I think they notice that, hey, look, the things that we tried to do this year, the labor we put in produced some fruit. Can we do that again and produce more fruit? I think that there’s an excitement about, what can we get done? So, I think that’s probably the reason. But the most important reason is I think they really enjoy each other.
DeMarr Langford averaged 11.3 points per game last season. (Brad Penner / USA Today)
You’re sitting there in February, you lose big at Syracuse, and then you go 4-4 the rest of the way, with a couple overtime losses in there. How do you view the end of the season? How do you frame it in your mind and to your guys?
The big thing for us is not to grow weary, to keep working, stay the course, keep getting better. We want to be our best in the end. So give the guys credit, their character revealed itself. They didn’t fold up the tent. They didn’t quit, they kept fighting, they kept working to get better at practice. Regardless of if we were winning or losing, we didn’t allow that to affect how we showed up the next day. It was a testament to their character. Finishing 4-4 was fine. We did have a couple tough losses that we felt like we should have won, with maybe one play here and one play there. But the guys just showed great character and they kept fighting.
What do you put at the top of the list of things to attack this summer with this group?
Develop the individual player. Keep getting everybody, the individual pieces, better. We are a developmental program, so just keep getting the individual pieces better. Hopefully help some of our older guys develop better in terms of the leadership piece as well. But we do have some talented players coming in. They’re going to be looking for some leadership from the older guys. And then, probably spend time developing our identity. We are going to have six new guys. We got to assimilate them into what we do, get them an understanding of what we do.
But the most important thing is, develop the individual player. We’re always going to be a developmental program, in terms of, hey, we take this guy that’s a good player and make him great. And we take this guy that’s a really good player and turn them into maybe one of the top guys in the league. It’s always going to be about the individual development of the guys in the offseason.
Earl Grant, for the most part a lifelong Southeast Guy, doesn’t mind the seasons. Actually kind of likes them. He liked it when the weather got a little chippy during the few years he spent in south-central Kansas, and he didn’t think his first New England winter was all that bad, despite the warnings to batten down every available hatch.
“It’s one of those places when it snows,” Grant says, “the sun’s still out.”
There’s a metaphor in there somewhere for Boston College men’s basketball, a program long stumbling through blizzard conditions in the ACC, for which 45-year-old Grant is trying to provide some light.
And there have been flickers, anyway, toward the end of Grant’s first season at the helm and heading into an offseason where any developmental strides must be made. Thirteen wins in 2020-21 were no one’s idea of a rousing success … but a bit of a late-year revival ended with the Eagles one overtime loss away from the ACC tournament semifinals. Though there’s one significant stay-or-go decision yet to be officially made, it’s likely that Boston College will bring back its top three scorers and add a top 35-ish class of freshmen and transfers to the mix. Construction on the $50 million, 40,000-square-foot Hoag Basketball Pavilion began in March, a long-overdue resource for a team attempting to survive in the ACC.
“I know they probably needed to do that years ago,” Grant says, “but they’re doing it now.”
Again: The metaphors abound. So The Athletic spoke to Grant about more tangible basketball matters such as recruiting footprint, finding more shooting and the impact of a new athletic director after the departure of Patrick Kraft, plus much more.
In terms of advantages or challenges, what did you only find out about Boston College and the job of Boston College men’s basketball coach once you were in it?
There were maybe some more challenges that maybe people dealt with in the past. I know for me, there’s a $50 million facility that’s already started. I’ve been there for a year, and they’re working every day out there to get us a state-of-the-art practice facility — player lounge, weight room, coaches lounge, nutrition center. The atmosphere has shifted.
In terms of just day-to-day at Boston College, it’s an amazing city. We got great people we work with. I think every program deals with things, but I played Division II and junior college, so you kind of learn to use what you got. Most times, you got plenty. More than what you give yourself credit for. So I think we got a lot here. Obviously, with the new $50 million facility coming soon, that really helps us. But there isn’t any challenge that jumps out to me, where I didn’t know that before I got here. I pretty much knew what I was getting into. We played here when I was at Clemson for four straight years. I’d been coming to Boston for seven straight years (coaching in the CAA) to play Northeastern. So I kind of had a feel for the city and the school.
When that facility opens up where do you think that puts Boston College, in terms of that “arms race” in the ACC, at least?
Obviously it’s already helped us being out recruiting for 2022. Having that to sell, ‘Hey, this is your facility that you are going to experience,’ I think that helped us. In terms of the arms race, in a conference, whether it was my time at Wichita State, or Winthrop, or Clemson, College of Charleston, there’s some programs that are going to be considered at the top, there’s some that’s considered at the bottom, and then there’s a lot of them in the middle. I think that what that does for us is just put us in the mix of some of the best programs in the league on paper. In terms of what they say we have on paper, I think that put us right there in the middle.
But in terms of the arms race, we’re not going to ever have what some of these programs are going to have. We have to be OK with that. So that’s why it’s so important to be able to go out and evaluate kids that fit the DNA of our program, holistically. ‘There’s a good Boston College guy. There’s a good guy that would love to be in Boston. There’s a guy that would love to play in the ACC that maybe isn’t getting recruited by everybody in the league.’ The DNA of Boston College, the history of having a Reggie Jackson up here, a Jared Dudley, they didn’t have the whole ACC going after them. But those guys had a chip on their shoulder and they were tough. So I think that’s what we have to do because, yeah, we probably won’t have what the top four teams have. And that’s OK.
To that end, I remember talking to Pat Kraft a little bit after you were hired. His theory was, I want a guy who can recruit the ACC footprint, because that’s who we are. How has that evolved for you? How has that developed? When you look at where you are putting your emphasis, where you are looking for those guys, how has that developed over the first cycle and a half or so?
There’s some good players up here. So we’re starting right here in our backyard, looking for guys that fit BC, that want to stay home, that want to be a part of what we’re doing.
And then in the first class that we signed, our class didn’t indicate that we are focusing on the Northeast, but we are focused on the Northeast — we just happened to get guys who weren’t from the Northeast. We didn’t get the guys that we tried to get from the Northeast, so we ended up going back to the Boston College blueprint. We went to Minneapolis. Troy Bell is from out there. We went to Virginia Beach. Down in Virginia — Tyrese Rice. We went to Houston. They’ve had a couple guys from Texas that played at Boston College and were successful. We went to Toronto. We just went and found guys that addressed the needs that we needed to fill, and they just happened to be all across the country. We still try to recruit the Northeast. We’re recruiting them and we’re recruiting guys nationally. So we’ll see. If some of them want to stay home, that would be amazing. But if they don’t, we still have to sign a couple guys.
Assuming DeMarr Langford doesn’t stay in the draft, you might have your top three scorers back, plus another big piece in Quinten Post. You won 13 games last year, but were you able to keep that core intact in this transitory era of the portal. What do you think these guys have bought into that have them coming back?
I think they like each other. I think they like Boston College. I think they like the idea of trying to build something special and leave a legacy. So it’s bigger than them. We do have one still in the NBA Draft process. And he is a pro, at some point. He’s a good player. So we’ll see what happens there. But in terms of just bringing back that core, I just think they like each other, man. I think it’s a good group of guys that care about each other. And then I think they notice that, hey, look, the things that we tried to do this year, the labor we put in produced some fruit. Can we do that again and produce more fruit? I think that there’s an excitement about, what can we get done? So, I think that’s probably the reason. But the most important reason is I think they really enjoy each other.
DeMarr Langford averaged 11.3 points per game last season. (Brad Penner / USA Today)
You’re sitting there in February, you lose big at Syracuse, and then you go 4-4 the rest of the way, with a couple overtime losses in there. How do you view the end of the season? How do you frame it in your mind and to your guys?
The big thing for us is not to grow weary, to keep working, stay the course, keep getting better. We want to be our best in the end. So give the guys credit, their character revealed itself. They didn’t fold up the tent. They didn’t quit, they kept fighting, they kept working to get better at practice. Regardless of if we were winning or losing, we didn’t allow that to affect how we showed up the next day. It was a testament to their character. Finishing 4-4 was fine. We did have a couple tough losses that we felt like we should have won, with maybe one play here and one play there. But the guys just showed great character and they kept fighting.
What do you put at the top of the list of things to attack this summer with this group?
Develop the individual player. Keep getting everybody, the individual pieces, better. We are a developmental program, so just keep getting the individual pieces better. Hopefully help some of our older guys develop better in terms of the leadership piece as well. But we do have some talented players coming in. They’re going to be looking for some leadership from the older guys. And then, probably spend time developing our identity. We are going to have six new guys. We got to assimilate them into what we do, get them an understanding of what we do.
But the most important thing is, develop the individual player. We’re always going to be a developmental program, in terms of, hey, we take this guy that’s a good player and make him great. And we take this guy that’s a really good player and turn them into maybe one of the top guys in the league. It’s always going to be about the individual development of the guys in the offseason.
