Photo by: Joe Sullivan
The Opening Tip: Florida Atalntic
November 03, 2025 | Men's Basketball, #ForBoston Files
BC heads to the Sunshine State to kick off the 2025-2026 season.
Boca Raton, Florida is one of those places that's become increasingly important to the college sports universe.
Its location is widely recognized as a snowbird's dream. Dozens of retirement communities allow residents aged 55 or older to live out their senior years in peaceful bliss without the disturbances of the bigger and more recognizable cities surrounding the area, and its heartbeat within Palm Beach County helps make its region the third-largest county behind the dueling composition offered by the Miami-Dade and Broward pairing to the immediate south. Interstate-95 buzzes through its center while the Intracoastal Waterway and the ever-famous A1A Avenue - now named for singer Jimmy Buffett - provide an eastern border along its shoreline.
Situated right in the middle of its geographical footprint is Florida Atlantic University, a relatively young public institution founded as part of the State University System of Florida that's concurrently nestled right alongside the backside of Boca's airport. I-95 is immediately on the opposite side of the airport's west, but the Glades Road location gives FAU a centralized location that's easily accessible to that same Miami region.Â
FAU is nowhere near the traditional blue bloods of intercollegiate athletics. The Owls began their history as an independent NAIA team before moving into the NCAA's Division II for a 10-year stint spanning the mid-1980s and mid-1990s. Conference membership never reached power conference status after its acceptance into the Trans America Athletic Conference reformed into the Atlantic Sun.
Most of that changed when former Miami football head coach Howard Schnellenberger started FAU's program in 2001 and added to the legacy created by the legendary baseball program. For the next two decades, a series of short and ambitious moves helped the Owls secure membership in bigger leagues as the A-Sun turned into the Sun Belt, which became Conference USA, before expansion of the program helped recruit head coaches seeking reputational reclamations.
Basketball was never totally on the radar after the momentary notoriety of a 21-win season in Division II failed to secure a national tournament berth under Tim Loomis. The first three years in the Atlantic Sun, and the switch from Tim Loomis to Kevin Billerman failed to generate energy until former NBA first round pick Sidney Green joined the program after coaching three years at North Florida. By his third year, the Owls had a conference championship and a first round berth, but his next three years were decidedly under .500.
A series of reclamation projects ensued. Notre Dame and North Carolina head coach Matt Doherty coached one season in Boca, and Mike Jarvis brought the Owls to an NIT berth before they moved to Conference-USA. One-year Detroit Pistons head coach Michael Curry was in paradise for four years.Â
Hiring Dusty May in 2018 changed that entire complexion. He'd never been a head coach before FAU hired him away from Florida, but his ties to the fertile recruiting grounds slowly built the Owls into a certified contender. In 2022-2023, the No. 9 seed went on a Cinderella run to the Final Four by edging Memphis, ending the upstart dreams of No. 16-seeded Farleigh Dickenson and outright beating Tennessee and Kansas State.
May later left for Michigan, but the transformation resulted in another solid hire when John Jakus arrived from Baylor. What was once a home for coaches restarting their careers instead morphed into a destination for the young and up-and-coming fraternity, to which last year's 18-win trip to the NIT now leads into Monday's season opener against Boston College.
On so many fronts, this is anything from a non-power conference team. As the season gets set to begin, here's what we're watching as the Eagles tip off the 2025-2026 season against the mighty Owls:
****
Storylines (Pat Riley Edition)
Great effort springs naturally from great attitude.
I absolutely hated Pat Riley when I was younger. I was a little too young to fully remember his time with the Lakers, but I was the typical kid who worshipped Larry Bird. As far I was concerned, the purple team from the West Coast was the purest form of evil, and its head coach represented the Devil. It probably didn't help that he fully adapted the fast-paced "Showtime" fun-and-gun to the more physical and nasty New York Knicks at a time when the Celtics lost considerable ground to the powerhouse teams of the 90s.
It took a while to fully appreciate how he built three separate NBA franchises into championship contenders, but a large bulk of his success stemmed from his ability to connect with players across different eras. The Lakers built to succeed in the high-flying and wide open 1980s weren't the gritty and low-scoring Knicks from the mid-1990s defensive revolution, and neither team handed him the ready-built Miami Heat that alternated the 1990s and 2000s under Riley and Stan Van Gundy.
At the very least, Pat Riley understood the motivational tactics affiliated with getting teams to play basketball at a high level, and each team responded by dedicating more fully to a style conducive to its success. In BC's case, generating that belief within Grant's system is therefore a requirement for getting past any opponent, but it's especially key against an FAU team suited to play an uptempo style at both ends of the floor.
"We wanted guys that were very unselfish," said head coach Earl Grant, "that could look in the mirror and say that it's not all about them. They wanted to be part of something bigger than themselves, that their teammates matter and the players that [played for BC] mattered. We wanted to find some people that fit [the program]."
Discipline is not a nasty word.
Higher speed games don't typically favor physical half-court teams, so expect FAU to push the floor with a lineup built around freshman guard Josiah Parker, a top-100 recruit and four-star prospect with a double-double average that earned him a nomination to the McDonald's All-America Team. His older brother serves as an assistant coach on Jakus' staff, but his player profile fits the mold of the taller and sizable guard capable of giving BC fits on the defensive end.
"We have guards that are hybrids between guards and wings," said Grant, "so in the back court, we have three guys in Chase Forte, Luca Toews and Fred Payne that can go back and forth between the [shooting guard] and the [point guard]. The only other guy that can maybe play the point is Akbar Waheed, but he's a freshman."
Parker's ability to play a swing role as a guard in the FAU system relies partially on a frontcourt that's going to feature transfer Kanaan Carlyle from Indiana and Devin Williams from UCLA. Each are big enough to challenge BC at its soft spot in the paint, which in turn would open up backcourt shooters for more open looks after the defense is forced to collapse into its own end.
Being a part of success is more important than being personally indispensable.
BC enters the 2025-2026 season with an adjusted defensive rating that's in the top third of college basketball, but questions very much remain about how it gels. The UConn exhibition was, at times, a solid showing by a team that played into its underdog status against a national championship contender, though it's important to remember that the pairings in any exhibition - televised or behind closed doors - are meant to generate film and feedback. Putting too much stock into anything from any exhibition game is therefore an impossibility.
"The majority of our team is third-year or fourth-year players," emphasized Grant, "so I'm not overly concerned about what everybody has or what they have going. We've been working hard. We have great spirit, and we are concerned only about getting ready for our first game. That's what matters."
Popular opinion points to BC's deficiencies as a reason why games are lost, but the Eagles finished last year around the national average in most adjusted defensive ratings. The KenPom block numbers were the only ones that skewed below the national average compared to an opponent's ability to reject BC's offensive opportunities, so figuring out ways to balance numbers from the first game is a big part of Grant's approach to this season.
*****
Question Box
Who starts in the frontcourt area?
Boden Kapke's footwork improved over the first half of the exhibition game against UConn to the degree that he exposed Eric Reibe's relative inexperience at the college level throughout the second half of the game at Mohegan Sun. Assuming he starts for BC, expect FAU to counter his presence with a straight up approach to Devin Williams at its center position. There's always the possibility of guards crashing the paint - Parker, Carlyle and Devin Vanterpool are chief among that list - but it's more likely that the season starts with Williams going head-to-head against Kapke.
How much does the three-pointer play into Monday night?
FAU finished last season with a plus-five rating over the national average of assists per converted field goals, and the possibility of a lack of cohesion in the backcourt opens a host of options for head coach John Jakus. The Owls admittedly were on the worse end of three-point shooting during the 2024-2025 season, but it's unclear if the outside shot is a legitimate weapon for a team that finished with a 35.2 percent accuracy rating.
Conversely, FAU struggled with perimeter defense at times during the season, which means that a BC team built to shoot from outside needs to seek containment breaks for fast ball movement around the outside.
How much Halloween candy is an acceptable amount to eat?
I missed Halloween due to a wedding in New York, but my children each brought home buckets of candy for their efforts on the streets. That bucket stared at me for the past four mornings, and I'm left to wonder if I can dig into the full-sized candy bar that I know is sitting at the bottom of the Swedish fish and Sour Patch Kids. I want the Snickers bar, I'm probably going after it, but is it okay if I do that?
*****
BC-FAU X Factor
We're entitled to defend what we have until we lose it. - Scottie Pippen
Last year's Boston College basketball program finished with a 12-19 record because of perceived inefficiencies at key or critical junctures of the season. The 6-1 team with five consecutive victories never recovered from its loss to Dartmouth on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and the overall struggles to fully eliminate Stonehill and Farleigh Dickenson bled through the ACC season before the Eagles were deleted from postseason contention.
Donald Hand Jr. is readily recognized as a key contributing piece to last year's brief success, but Fred Payne and Jayden Hastings were just as efficient throughout the 2024-2025 season. Returning each to a starting lineup while the frontcourt pieces settle around Boden Kapke and Aidan Shaw therefore allows the Eagles to defend their style of play behind three players who were severely underrated for a large bulk of last season.
Hastings was particularly powerful on his total shot percentage despite shooting 42 percent from the line on limited attempts, and getting him more minutes from the starting lineup is equally huge to gaining momentum through the early portion of the games. Extrapolating that over the rest of the lineup opens the door for something potentially special.
"Jayden really took me in," said Kapke. "We did a lot of things together over the summer, as well as a team on the whole. We had a lot of team activities, and that really helped us bond off the court. Then that obviously started to translate onto the court, and I think it grew throughout the summer. I'm really excited to see how it continues to grow throughout the season.
*****
This Random Day In History
I'm always fascinated with Massachusetts history compared to the rest of the country because our state carries a long and twisted set of parochial norms that other parts of the United States just don't seem to observe. I'm especially intrigued by how the Commonwealth reshapes itself compared to its history, and the history of our transit and highway systems has long been a reading topic.
It sounds dry, but both institutions are littered with the political drama normally reserved for a bad Wednesday night sitcom. The Big Dig, for example, started redefining the Massachusetts highway system as early as 1982 before a series of elections and appointments aided in the legal haranguing of a system notoriously snarled by traffic and strange directions. It's not everyday that a person can drive on I-93 southbound at the exact same time as I-95 northbound, at least.Â
Governor Michael Dukakis' defeat for the Democratic Party's nomination in 1978 is likewise an example of how Massachusetts beats to its own drum. Challenged at his own party's incumbency by the Director of the Massachusetts Port Authority, Edward King, he lost due to his inability to regain his party's support, but King's ascension kept Lieutenant Governor Thomas P. O'Neill III (Tip O'Neill's son) in the secondary role despite his serving under Dukakis for the previous term.
Dukakis was largely responsible for the planning and execution of the Big Dig over the next few decades because his Secretary of Transportation, Fred Salvucci, attempted to develop a new transit system for the remainder of the state. The so-called Southwest Corridor was eventually shelved - as were most of his MBTA improvements - but Salvucci (and, by extension, Dukakis) were the early godfathers of the construction project that drastically reshaped the I-93 highway in Boston.
Today - November 3 - is Michael Dukakis' 92nd birthday. Formerly the Democratic nominee for president, an honor he'd eventually share with his second lieutenant governor, John Kerry, he is still one of the most consequential Massachusetts governors of our lifetime.
Just don't Google the tank picture.
*****
Pregame Quote and Final Thoughts
We sleep in April. -Jon Rothstein
The all-day college basketball extravaganza on Monday is an appetizer for the primetime game between Boston College and Florida Atlantic. No matter what happens, the 2025-2026 season is upon us, and with it comes the expectations and realities of games that count.
The road to March is beginning. Contextually through the words of noted national college basketball analyst Jon Rothstein, we sleep when it's over.
Boston College and Florida Atlantic will tip-off at 7 p.m. on Monday night from the Eleanor R. Baldwin Arena in Boca Raton, Florida. Television coverage is slotted for ESPNU, although customers with YouTubeTV cannot currently access ESPN networks due to a carriage dispute between the cable provider and the network. ESPN's online streaming platform, however, remains available for subscribers with access to the network's DTC coverage on Internet and mobile device apps.
Its location is widely recognized as a snowbird's dream. Dozens of retirement communities allow residents aged 55 or older to live out their senior years in peaceful bliss without the disturbances of the bigger and more recognizable cities surrounding the area, and its heartbeat within Palm Beach County helps make its region the third-largest county behind the dueling composition offered by the Miami-Dade and Broward pairing to the immediate south. Interstate-95 buzzes through its center while the Intracoastal Waterway and the ever-famous A1A Avenue - now named for singer Jimmy Buffett - provide an eastern border along its shoreline.
Situated right in the middle of its geographical footprint is Florida Atlantic University, a relatively young public institution founded as part of the State University System of Florida that's concurrently nestled right alongside the backside of Boca's airport. I-95 is immediately on the opposite side of the airport's west, but the Glades Road location gives FAU a centralized location that's easily accessible to that same Miami region.Â
FAU is nowhere near the traditional blue bloods of intercollegiate athletics. The Owls began their history as an independent NAIA team before moving into the NCAA's Division II for a 10-year stint spanning the mid-1980s and mid-1990s. Conference membership never reached power conference status after its acceptance into the Trans America Athletic Conference reformed into the Atlantic Sun.
Most of that changed when former Miami football head coach Howard Schnellenberger started FAU's program in 2001 and added to the legacy created by the legendary baseball program. For the next two decades, a series of short and ambitious moves helped the Owls secure membership in bigger leagues as the A-Sun turned into the Sun Belt, which became Conference USA, before expansion of the program helped recruit head coaches seeking reputational reclamations.
Basketball was never totally on the radar after the momentary notoriety of a 21-win season in Division II failed to secure a national tournament berth under Tim Loomis. The first three years in the Atlantic Sun, and the switch from Tim Loomis to Kevin Billerman failed to generate energy until former NBA first round pick Sidney Green joined the program after coaching three years at North Florida. By his third year, the Owls had a conference championship and a first round berth, but his next three years were decidedly under .500.
A series of reclamation projects ensued. Notre Dame and North Carolina head coach Matt Doherty coached one season in Boca, and Mike Jarvis brought the Owls to an NIT berth before they moved to Conference-USA. One-year Detroit Pistons head coach Michael Curry was in paradise for four years.Â
Hiring Dusty May in 2018 changed that entire complexion. He'd never been a head coach before FAU hired him away from Florida, but his ties to the fertile recruiting grounds slowly built the Owls into a certified contender. In 2022-2023, the No. 9 seed went on a Cinderella run to the Final Four by edging Memphis, ending the upstart dreams of No. 16-seeded Farleigh Dickenson and outright beating Tennessee and Kansas State.
May later left for Michigan, but the transformation resulted in another solid hire when John Jakus arrived from Baylor. What was once a home for coaches restarting their careers instead morphed into a destination for the young and up-and-coming fraternity, to which last year's 18-win trip to the NIT now leads into Monday's season opener against Boston College.
On so many fronts, this is anything from a non-power conference team. As the season gets set to begin, here's what we're watching as the Eagles tip off the 2025-2026 season against the mighty Owls:
****
Storylines (Pat Riley Edition)
Great effort springs naturally from great attitude.
I absolutely hated Pat Riley when I was younger. I was a little too young to fully remember his time with the Lakers, but I was the typical kid who worshipped Larry Bird. As far I was concerned, the purple team from the West Coast was the purest form of evil, and its head coach represented the Devil. It probably didn't help that he fully adapted the fast-paced "Showtime" fun-and-gun to the more physical and nasty New York Knicks at a time when the Celtics lost considerable ground to the powerhouse teams of the 90s.
It took a while to fully appreciate how he built three separate NBA franchises into championship contenders, but a large bulk of his success stemmed from his ability to connect with players across different eras. The Lakers built to succeed in the high-flying and wide open 1980s weren't the gritty and low-scoring Knicks from the mid-1990s defensive revolution, and neither team handed him the ready-built Miami Heat that alternated the 1990s and 2000s under Riley and Stan Van Gundy.
At the very least, Pat Riley understood the motivational tactics affiliated with getting teams to play basketball at a high level, and each team responded by dedicating more fully to a style conducive to its success. In BC's case, generating that belief within Grant's system is therefore a requirement for getting past any opponent, but it's especially key against an FAU team suited to play an uptempo style at both ends of the floor.
"We wanted guys that were very unselfish," said head coach Earl Grant, "that could look in the mirror and say that it's not all about them. They wanted to be part of something bigger than themselves, that their teammates matter and the players that [played for BC] mattered. We wanted to find some people that fit [the program]."
Discipline is not a nasty word.
Higher speed games don't typically favor physical half-court teams, so expect FAU to push the floor with a lineup built around freshman guard Josiah Parker, a top-100 recruit and four-star prospect with a double-double average that earned him a nomination to the McDonald's All-America Team. His older brother serves as an assistant coach on Jakus' staff, but his player profile fits the mold of the taller and sizable guard capable of giving BC fits on the defensive end.
"We have guards that are hybrids between guards and wings," said Grant, "so in the back court, we have three guys in Chase Forte, Luca Toews and Fred Payne that can go back and forth between the [shooting guard] and the [point guard]. The only other guy that can maybe play the point is Akbar Waheed, but he's a freshman."
Parker's ability to play a swing role as a guard in the FAU system relies partially on a frontcourt that's going to feature transfer Kanaan Carlyle from Indiana and Devin Williams from UCLA. Each are big enough to challenge BC at its soft spot in the paint, which in turn would open up backcourt shooters for more open looks after the defense is forced to collapse into its own end.
Being a part of success is more important than being personally indispensable.
BC enters the 2025-2026 season with an adjusted defensive rating that's in the top third of college basketball, but questions very much remain about how it gels. The UConn exhibition was, at times, a solid showing by a team that played into its underdog status against a national championship contender, though it's important to remember that the pairings in any exhibition - televised or behind closed doors - are meant to generate film and feedback. Putting too much stock into anything from any exhibition game is therefore an impossibility.
"The majority of our team is third-year or fourth-year players," emphasized Grant, "so I'm not overly concerned about what everybody has or what they have going. We've been working hard. We have great spirit, and we are concerned only about getting ready for our first game. That's what matters."
Popular opinion points to BC's deficiencies as a reason why games are lost, but the Eagles finished last year around the national average in most adjusted defensive ratings. The KenPom block numbers were the only ones that skewed below the national average compared to an opponent's ability to reject BC's offensive opportunities, so figuring out ways to balance numbers from the first game is a big part of Grant's approach to this season.
*****
Question Box
Who starts in the frontcourt area?
Boden Kapke's footwork improved over the first half of the exhibition game against UConn to the degree that he exposed Eric Reibe's relative inexperience at the college level throughout the second half of the game at Mohegan Sun. Assuming he starts for BC, expect FAU to counter his presence with a straight up approach to Devin Williams at its center position. There's always the possibility of guards crashing the paint - Parker, Carlyle and Devin Vanterpool are chief among that list - but it's more likely that the season starts with Williams going head-to-head against Kapke.
How much does the three-pointer play into Monday night?
FAU finished last season with a plus-five rating over the national average of assists per converted field goals, and the possibility of a lack of cohesion in the backcourt opens a host of options for head coach John Jakus. The Owls admittedly were on the worse end of three-point shooting during the 2024-2025 season, but it's unclear if the outside shot is a legitimate weapon for a team that finished with a 35.2 percent accuracy rating.
Conversely, FAU struggled with perimeter defense at times during the season, which means that a BC team built to shoot from outside needs to seek containment breaks for fast ball movement around the outside.
How much Halloween candy is an acceptable amount to eat?
I missed Halloween due to a wedding in New York, but my children each brought home buckets of candy for their efforts on the streets. That bucket stared at me for the past four mornings, and I'm left to wonder if I can dig into the full-sized candy bar that I know is sitting at the bottom of the Swedish fish and Sour Patch Kids. I want the Snickers bar, I'm probably going after it, but is it okay if I do that?
*****
BC-FAU X Factor
We're entitled to defend what we have until we lose it. - Scottie Pippen
Last year's Boston College basketball program finished with a 12-19 record because of perceived inefficiencies at key or critical junctures of the season. The 6-1 team with five consecutive victories never recovered from its loss to Dartmouth on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and the overall struggles to fully eliminate Stonehill and Farleigh Dickenson bled through the ACC season before the Eagles were deleted from postseason contention.
Donald Hand Jr. is readily recognized as a key contributing piece to last year's brief success, but Fred Payne and Jayden Hastings were just as efficient throughout the 2024-2025 season. Returning each to a starting lineup while the frontcourt pieces settle around Boden Kapke and Aidan Shaw therefore allows the Eagles to defend their style of play behind three players who were severely underrated for a large bulk of last season.
Hastings was particularly powerful on his total shot percentage despite shooting 42 percent from the line on limited attempts, and getting him more minutes from the starting lineup is equally huge to gaining momentum through the early portion of the games. Extrapolating that over the rest of the lineup opens the door for something potentially special.
"Jayden really took me in," said Kapke. "We did a lot of things together over the summer, as well as a team on the whole. We had a lot of team activities, and that really helped us bond off the court. Then that obviously started to translate onto the court, and I think it grew throughout the summer. I'm really excited to see how it continues to grow throughout the season.
*****
This Random Day In History
I'm always fascinated with Massachusetts history compared to the rest of the country because our state carries a long and twisted set of parochial norms that other parts of the United States just don't seem to observe. I'm especially intrigued by how the Commonwealth reshapes itself compared to its history, and the history of our transit and highway systems has long been a reading topic.
It sounds dry, but both institutions are littered with the political drama normally reserved for a bad Wednesday night sitcom. The Big Dig, for example, started redefining the Massachusetts highway system as early as 1982 before a series of elections and appointments aided in the legal haranguing of a system notoriously snarled by traffic and strange directions. It's not everyday that a person can drive on I-93 southbound at the exact same time as I-95 northbound, at least.Â
Governor Michael Dukakis' defeat for the Democratic Party's nomination in 1978 is likewise an example of how Massachusetts beats to its own drum. Challenged at his own party's incumbency by the Director of the Massachusetts Port Authority, Edward King, he lost due to his inability to regain his party's support, but King's ascension kept Lieutenant Governor Thomas P. O'Neill III (Tip O'Neill's son) in the secondary role despite his serving under Dukakis for the previous term.
Dukakis was largely responsible for the planning and execution of the Big Dig over the next few decades because his Secretary of Transportation, Fred Salvucci, attempted to develop a new transit system for the remainder of the state. The so-called Southwest Corridor was eventually shelved - as were most of his MBTA improvements - but Salvucci (and, by extension, Dukakis) were the early godfathers of the construction project that drastically reshaped the I-93 highway in Boston.
Today - November 3 - is Michael Dukakis' 92nd birthday. Formerly the Democratic nominee for president, an honor he'd eventually share with his second lieutenant governor, John Kerry, he is still one of the most consequential Massachusetts governors of our lifetime.
Just don't Google the tank picture.
*****
Pregame Quote and Final Thoughts
We sleep in April. -Jon Rothstein
The all-day college basketball extravaganza on Monday is an appetizer for the primetime game between Boston College and Florida Atlantic. No matter what happens, the 2025-2026 season is upon us, and with it comes the expectations and realities of games that count.
The road to March is beginning. Contextually through the words of noted national college basketball analyst Jon Rothstein, we sleep when it's over.
Boston College and Florida Atlantic will tip-off at 7 p.m. on Monday night from the Eleanor R. Baldwin Arena in Boca Raton, Florida. Television coverage is slotted for ESPNU, although customers with YouTubeTV cannot currently access ESPN networks due to a carriage dispute between the cable provider and the network. ESPN's online streaming platform, however, remains available for subscribers with access to the network's DTC coverage on Internet and mobile device apps.
Players Mentioned
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/ Men's Basketball
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/ Men's Basketball
F/C
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/ Men's Basketball
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