Looking Back Before Looking Forward

There's an old saying that in order to understand where you're going, you have to fully understand where you've been. It's a simple way to explain the full understanding of the present, but it encapsulates how to obtain perspective both in sports and in life. The past, as it stands, can't be changed, but it dictates the bedrock on which the future is both written and interpreted.

If that's truly the case, any look at the 2022 Boston College baseball season requires a full-bodied look at how the team arrived at this week's opening series against Austin Peay, both through the eyes of the 2021 season and through the perspective of a program still growing, still building and still hunting what it knows it can achieve.

"Even when I got into the league 15 years ago, the ACC has always been one of the top one or two conferences in the country for baseball," head coach Mike Gambino said, "but when you look at that spot and then look at the improvement overall, you have a league that could have what happened last year."

Last year was a strange year in college baseball for a number of reasons. COVID-19 had canceled the 2020 season before it ever got started and erased both the College World Series and the hope for a greater, regular Major League Baseball season. Minor League Baseball went on hiatus, and the professional, 60-game sprint occurred without any input from the developmental systems designed to push talent towards the game's highest level.

The chaos impacted every level of the sport, but no singular event held greater sway over the 2021 season than when the MLB Entry Draft changed to a five-round event. The shortened format resulted in franchises selecting players considered more selectable or signable while subsequently removing the elite level rounds used on top-flight talent, and a number of college-eligible prospects went undrafted alongside some of the top high school talent in the nation. The vast majority then either returned to college baseball or matriculated into the NCAA ranks for the minimum three-year requirement when rosters were granted one-year expansion exemptions.

It turned college baseball's 2021 season into one of its most electric years in history, and the matchups exploded with some of the most competitive games ever played. At Boston College alone, a three-game series win over Auburn included a miracle, extra innings comeback in the rubber match while the next series at Louisville included a two-run loss against the Cardinals. Three days after returning home, Holy Cross piled 12 runs onto the scoreboard to the Eagles' 18 at the Harrington Athletics Village before a weekend see-saw gave a series win to North Carolina. A weekend after that, Clemson and BC went to extra innings before Virginia Tech, then up to No. 13 in the nation, won a pair of one-run ballgames over BC in Blacksburg.

"There were five ACC teams that were ranked inside the top-15 in the nation at one point during the season that didn't make the NCAA Tournament," Gambino said. "Virginia was middle of the pack and had to win its way into the NCAA Tournament, and then it won a regional and a Super Regional to advance to Omaha. Duke fought to get into the ACC Tournament and won the conference, and we were in that mix of teams that were fighting for those last couple of spots. That's how crazy this league is and how elite the 14 teams are in this league, that 11 or 12 teams every year are capable of going on a crazy run [to a championship]."

Figuring out how to navigate those waters isn't easy, and BC realized the difficulty last year after the season started with a bang. The Eagles earned their way into the national rankings after sweeping Charleston Southern and beating Duke, but taking two-of-three from Auburn on the road, including the aforementioned miracle comeback, rocketed them up to No. 13 prior to a series at No. 15 Louisville. By the end of the season, neither team was ranked, and neither made the NCAA Tournament.

BC eventually finished the season with an identical record to Wake Forest, but further identifying the entire ACC showed that trend. Duke finished with a better overall winning percentage than both Virginia and North Carolina but placed fifth in the Coastal Division with the same conference record as Pittsburgh, a team that had 10 less overall wins.

Louisville, meanwhile, finished the season with a fourth place finish in the Atlantic Division and had a two-game lead over Clemson, but they each finished with the same 16 wins as both Duke and Pittsburgh, two less than UNC and UVA. In the midst of all of that, Notre Dame went 25-10 in the league but ranked behind N.C. State's 37-19 overall record while the Wolfpack finished second in the Atlantic Division with one less win than Florida State, one of the four teams with 20 ACC wins.

None of that eases the sting of missing either the ACC Tournament or the NCAA Tournament, but living with that margin of error is proof of how BC is readying itself for an inevitable breakthrough at an elite level. The Eagles were always a model of player development and coaching, but the unveiling and opening of the Pete Frates Center and a return to more normal recruiting means incoming freshman and prospective student-athletes now have an opportunity to see firsthand what's been developing in Boston.

"There are going to be ups and downs," Gambino said. "With some of these guys, with young players and with development, it's never linear. That's just not how it works. It's not a straight line, and we know that. We understand it, and we're always working on that balance. As they grow and learn, they know they're going to turn into really good pros and really good draft picks, and they're going to really help us win games along the way. We're going to work with them through those [days], and it's a level that we live in."

BC opens up its 2021 season this weekend when it heads to Austin Peay University to play the Governors in a three-game series. Friday's game is set for a 3 p.m. first pitch while both Saturday and Sunday are scheduled for 2 p.m. starts.

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