Photo by: Joe Sullivan
Hand Entering 2025-2026 As One Of College's Greats
November 01, 2025 | Men's Basketball, #ForBoston Files
Newer analytics prove how BC's star guard is among the nation's best.
Donald Hand Jr.'s evolution into an All-ACC guard provided the backdrop for Boston College's 2025-2026 offseason newsreel. The Eagles missed the ACC Tournament in its first year of eliminating the bottom three teams, so the bulk of the nation expected Hand's breakout star to enter the transfer portal. No shortage of suitors existed for an all-conference guard in one of the nation's best leagues, and the modern era steeped in the quasi-free agency surrounding name, image and likeness essentially meant that a sub-.500 team anticipated annual departures to the more successful programs around college basketball.
None of this considered Hand's status within the BC program, nor did it evaluate factors outside of the pure numbers. He understood what many within Hoag Basketball Pavilion knew about head coach Earl Grant, and he lacked the intention to depart the tutelage of the system that guided him over the previous three seasons. He evidenced his commitment to the maroon and gold on a daily basis, and he wanted to restore the Eagles to spots occupied by Conte Forum's greatest teams.
He saw the potential of a breakout campaign built around blending incoming transfers and recruits with returning production, and he wanted in. He wasn't going anywhere, and as the 2025-2026 season began, a quiet confidence burst into the spotlight with a ferocity readying for public display in Monday night's season opener.
"Coach Grant has built me up the whole time," said Hand during BC's preseason media day. "As a freshman, I wasn't watching much film, but I was always in the gym. Coach Grant harped on me that film was important, as important as getting to the gym or taking care of my body. So those little things he kept preaching to me [led to] my sophomore year and another jump. Then he said it was a process and not going to happen right away, and as a kid, you don't really understand that, but then my junior year was about breaking out and eating the fruits of my labor. Now going into this year, it's about being more efficient."
Efficiency is occasionally difficult to measure on the basketball court. Field goal percentage is no longer a direct equator to playing well on any given night, and points per game is an outdated number that doesn't account for defensive stops, rebounds or play away from the basket. Players are impactful based on the team's ability to score or defend when they're on the floor, but a total efficiency requires context surrounding how they impact an opponent's overall play.
Advanced analytical formulas starting to account for that performance are complex in their per-minute measurements, but Hand's overall growth is now quantifiable compared to previous years. His overall output in his first two years at BC, for example, stayed relatively constant in a sense that he averaged 14.3 points per game in 2022-2023 and 14.0 points per game in 2023-2024, but his efficiency took a major jump because he lowered his fouls and turnovers - even while his rebounds halved from 11.4 boards per game to what's now his career low of 5.3.
That efficiency measures the sum of positive contributions before removing the sum of negative contributions on a per-minute basis and is standardized to a baseline average of 15.0 - meaning anything below 15.0 is more inefficient while numbers trending higher implies better efficiency. In his first year at BC, Hand actually measured -1.8 on his PER before jumping to 11.1 in his second season under Grant..Â
To be fair, his measurements were significantly reduced because a torn ACL ended his season after two games, but it implies that he wasn't actually playing efficiently within the lineup for either of those appearances. Giving him more reps on the floor in his second season in uniform therefore balanced the number in an older sense of points, steals, assists, rebounds, turnovers and fouls, but none of his advanced percentages took a colossal jump as he came off the bench.
"When we recruited him, he was wired to score," said Grant, "and he has the ability to do that. His next phase now is to stay aggressive and continue to look to score [while] figuring out how to make guys around him better, use his magnetic force to get some of our big guys some shots at the rim and his teammates some open threes."
Hand gained that understanding as last year progressed. In a classic sense, his scoring growth pointed him towards the top-15 of conference players while his free throw percentage increased to fifth best in the ACC and his three-point percentage jumped to seventh, but from an analytics and growth perspective, he finished with a 17.5 Player Efficiency Rating that was comparable to Duke's Tyrese Proctor and anyone from the national champion Florida, although he rated slightly behind the Blue Devils' Kon Knueppel and the Gators' Walter Clayton, Jr.
His effective field goal percentage. which accounts for the increased value of three-point shooting, jumped to just under 50 percent, a number comparable to Dajuan Harris, Jr.'s .489 for Kansas, and his total rebounding percentage climbed three full percentage points after he jumped more than six percent on defensive rebounding percentage.
"Really just [need to be] more efficient," said Hand of his future. "It's all about winning. I'm just trying to win games and find my teammates in the right spot, be in my gaps, just overall trying to do more. An efficient player is better for my teammates to help them get open shots and help make the game easier for them."
Getting to an efficient level is a season-long quest, but the focus, for now, is strictly on a Florida Atlantic team that ranked among the nation's third tier of rated defenses during the 2024-2025 season. The Owls are increasingly young after their NCAA Tournament team that won 25 games lost a half-dozen players to the transfer portal after head coach Dusty May departed for Michigan, and while new, second-year head coach John Jakus was able to grab a pair of power conference players from the Big Ten, they remain an underrated piece of the American Athletic Conference landscape.
"At the end of the day, I'm just trying to win here at BC," said Hand. "We're trying to get to the tournament. When you win, winning solves everything. So I'm just trying to be the best teammates and get BC back to the tournament."
BC kicks off its 2025-2026 season on Monday when it travels to Florida Atlantic University. Game time is slotted for 7 p.m. from the Eleanor R. Baldwin Arena in Boca Raton, Florida and can be seen on national television via ESPNU.
None of this considered Hand's status within the BC program, nor did it evaluate factors outside of the pure numbers. He understood what many within Hoag Basketball Pavilion knew about head coach Earl Grant, and he lacked the intention to depart the tutelage of the system that guided him over the previous three seasons. He evidenced his commitment to the maroon and gold on a daily basis, and he wanted to restore the Eagles to spots occupied by Conte Forum's greatest teams.
He saw the potential of a breakout campaign built around blending incoming transfers and recruits with returning production, and he wanted in. He wasn't going anywhere, and as the 2025-2026 season began, a quiet confidence burst into the spotlight with a ferocity readying for public display in Monday night's season opener.
"Coach Grant has built me up the whole time," said Hand during BC's preseason media day. "As a freshman, I wasn't watching much film, but I was always in the gym. Coach Grant harped on me that film was important, as important as getting to the gym or taking care of my body. So those little things he kept preaching to me [led to] my sophomore year and another jump. Then he said it was a process and not going to happen right away, and as a kid, you don't really understand that, but then my junior year was about breaking out and eating the fruits of my labor. Now going into this year, it's about being more efficient."
Efficiency is occasionally difficult to measure on the basketball court. Field goal percentage is no longer a direct equator to playing well on any given night, and points per game is an outdated number that doesn't account for defensive stops, rebounds or play away from the basket. Players are impactful based on the team's ability to score or defend when they're on the floor, but a total efficiency requires context surrounding how they impact an opponent's overall play.
Advanced analytical formulas starting to account for that performance are complex in their per-minute measurements, but Hand's overall growth is now quantifiable compared to previous years. His overall output in his first two years at BC, for example, stayed relatively constant in a sense that he averaged 14.3 points per game in 2022-2023 and 14.0 points per game in 2023-2024, but his efficiency took a major jump because he lowered his fouls and turnovers - even while his rebounds halved from 11.4 boards per game to what's now his career low of 5.3.
That efficiency measures the sum of positive contributions before removing the sum of negative contributions on a per-minute basis and is standardized to a baseline average of 15.0 - meaning anything below 15.0 is more inefficient while numbers trending higher implies better efficiency. In his first year at BC, Hand actually measured -1.8 on his PER before jumping to 11.1 in his second season under Grant..Â
To be fair, his measurements were significantly reduced because a torn ACL ended his season after two games, but it implies that he wasn't actually playing efficiently within the lineup for either of those appearances. Giving him more reps on the floor in his second season in uniform therefore balanced the number in an older sense of points, steals, assists, rebounds, turnovers and fouls, but none of his advanced percentages took a colossal jump as he came off the bench.
"When we recruited him, he was wired to score," said Grant, "and he has the ability to do that. His next phase now is to stay aggressive and continue to look to score [while] figuring out how to make guys around him better, use his magnetic force to get some of our big guys some shots at the rim and his teammates some open threes."
Hand gained that understanding as last year progressed. In a classic sense, his scoring growth pointed him towards the top-15 of conference players while his free throw percentage increased to fifth best in the ACC and his three-point percentage jumped to seventh, but from an analytics and growth perspective, he finished with a 17.5 Player Efficiency Rating that was comparable to Duke's Tyrese Proctor and anyone from the national champion Florida, although he rated slightly behind the Blue Devils' Kon Knueppel and the Gators' Walter Clayton, Jr.
His effective field goal percentage. which accounts for the increased value of three-point shooting, jumped to just under 50 percent, a number comparable to Dajuan Harris, Jr.'s .489 for Kansas, and his total rebounding percentage climbed three full percentage points after he jumped more than six percent on defensive rebounding percentage.
"Really just [need to be] more efficient," said Hand of his future. "It's all about winning. I'm just trying to win games and find my teammates in the right spot, be in my gaps, just overall trying to do more. An efficient player is better for my teammates to help them get open shots and help make the game easier for them."
Getting to an efficient level is a season-long quest, but the focus, for now, is strictly on a Florida Atlantic team that ranked among the nation's third tier of rated defenses during the 2024-2025 season. The Owls are increasingly young after their NCAA Tournament team that won 25 games lost a half-dozen players to the transfer portal after head coach Dusty May departed for Michigan, and while new, second-year head coach John Jakus was able to grab a pair of power conference players from the Big Ten, they remain an underrated piece of the American Athletic Conference landscape.
"At the end of the day, I'm just trying to win here at BC," said Hand. "We're trying to get to the tournament. When you win, winning solves everything. So I'm just trying to be the best teammates and get BC back to the tournament."
BC kicks off its 2025-2026 season on Monday when it travels to Florida Atlantic University. Game time is slotted for 7 p.m. from the Eleanor R. Baldwin Arena in Boca Raton, Florida and can be seen on national television via ESPNU.
Players Mentioned
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