Boston College Burning Question: Will the second consecutive early departure sabotage another campaign before it even begins?

Despite what has amounted to a lost decade of hoops in Chestnut Hill, Jim Christian’s charges had a slight glimmer of hope when the 2017-18 season came to a close. Seven league wins, the most since 2013, and an NIT appearance, the first postseason of any kind since the same year, had Boston College excited for a breakthrough last season. However, when half of one of the league’s preeminent backcourts vaulted to the NBA (Jerome Robinson) and the other (Ky Bowman) opted to eschew his final year of eligibility a year later, the Eagles seem destined for yet another year of irrelevance, cemented at the bottom of the ACC standings.

To add injury to insult, the player most equipped to fill the dynamic shoes of Bowman, rising sophomore Wynston Tabbs, will miss the entire year after September knee surgery. Much will therefore fall on the shoulders of former five-star recruit Derryck Thornton, now at his third collegiate stop, and senior Nik Popovic, the team’s leading returning scorer and second-leading rebounder. Expectations are bleak, as Boston College is the only ACC school outside of the KenPom preseason top 100, and if that plays itself out on the floor, it seems unlikely that Christian will be back to steward the Eagles for a seventh season.

Pittsburgh Burning Question: Will Jeff Capel’s progress continue?

As we head into another exciting ACC season that tips off in just under two weeks, we will be reviewing the key question for each of the league’s 15 squads. Today Matt Auerbach (@mauerbach24) begins at the bottom of the conference, with Pittsburgh, Georgia Tech and Wake Forest. 

Pittsburgh Burning Question: Can Jeff Capel reignite the Oakland Zoo?

Jeff Capel Takes Over a Pittsburgh Program in Need of a Refresh (USA Today Images)

While the recently dismissed Kevin Stallings is an easy mark, the lazy conclusion is to heap blame upon his shoulders for the moribund state Pittsburgh basketball is in. Sure, Stallings’ 4-32 ACC record (including the first winless conference season in school history) rationalizes fan apathy, but a deeper look reveals that the rapid downward spiral tracks all the way to the top. The school’s decision to end its longtime affiliation with the Big East for football reasons has had a significant negative effect on what had been a stellar basketball program. In Pittsburgh’s last 12 seasons as a member of the Big East, the Panthers entered the AP top 10 in 11 of those campaigns. Their conference affiliation switch ultimately cost the very successful Jamie Dixon his job, leaving Pittsburgh basketball at a crossroads.

Enter Jeff Capel, Mike Krzyzewski’s top lieutenant and former Oklahoma head coach, to clean up the mess and re-energize the fan base. Capel’s first job was to shore up the roster and he did so in earnest — convincing eight of the 11 possible returnees to remain on campus and bolstering them with a four-man freshman class highlighted by top-100 prospect Trey McGowens. Jared Wilson-Frame is the most accomplished of the upperclassmen, a solid scorer (13 PPG) for a team that Capel promises will play faster than 338th nationally in tempo. Will Capel’s arrival along with a promise of a more appealing brand of basketball allow for a re-emergence of the Oakland Zoo — even if the Panthers still aren’t very good? Stay tuned on that question.

Georgia Tech Burning Question: Is there any juice down in Atlanta?

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