The Boston College Eagles fired a coach and hired a Hollywood legacy in the same month, and honestly, the second part might be what this program needed most. In March 2026, after an 11-20 season and a 4-14 ACC record that left BC out of the conference tournament for the second straight year, the school dismissed Earl Grant — ending a five-year tenure that went 72-92 with one winning season. Less than 20 days later, the Eagles hired Luke Murray, the former UConn assistant who helped Dan Hurley’s Huskies and happens to be Bill Murray’s son. A new face, a famous name, and a completely rebuilt roster: the Heights are starting over.
The reset was overdue. Boston College is an ACC program that hasn’t danced since 2009 — a 17-year NCAA tournament drought that hangs over everything in Chestnut Hill. The glory years feel like another lifetime: Al Skinner’s run from 1997 to 2010 produced seven NCAA tournaments, an Elite Eight in 2006, and beloved stars like Troy Bell, Jared Dudley, Craig Smith and Tyrese Rice. Conte Forum used to be a fortress. Since the Eagles joined the ACC in 2005-06, though, the program has cycled through Steve Donahue, Jim Christian and Grant without finding the formula, watching the conference’s blue bloods lap them year after year.
Grant’s tenure had a genuine high point. The 2023-24 Eagles won 20 games, beat Providence in the NIT and took UNLV to the wire in the second round behind future NBA draft pick Quinten Post — the 57th overall pick who now plays for the Golden State Warriors — plus Jaeden Zackery and Devin McGlockton. Grant developed Post and Donald Hand Jr. into ACC Most Improved Players, and his locker-room sayings — “Gritty not Pretty,” “We not underdogs. We under God” — made him a cult figure. But the following offseason, nearly the entire rotation left for the transfer portal, and the program never recovered: two straight seasons missing the ACC tournament and an 0-19 road record in ACC play over that span. As AD Blake James put it when announcing the firing, the school has “greater expectations.”
Murray, 40-something and one of the game’s respected young tacticians, arrives with a résumé built on winning at the highest level — he was on the bench for UConn’s championship runs under Hurley — and he has wasted no time. The 2026-27 roster is essentially brand new: 12 additions headlined by Montana guard Money Williams, Ball State’s Armoni Zeigler, Charleston forward Colby Duggan, Merrimack’s Ernest Shelton, George Washington graduate transfer Luke Hunger, 7-footer Aly Tounkara from Arkansas State, and freshmen like Brandon Benjamin and UConn transfer Jacob Furphy. It’s a total teardown, which is exactly what a program with BC’s recent history needed.
The ACC road doesn’t get easier for a rebuild. The Eagles’ 2026-27 league slate includes home dates with Duke, North Carolina, Louisville, Clemson and Notre Dame, plus trips to Syracuse, Pitt, Virginia, Stanford and Cal — and an ACC/SEC Challenge matchup that will test the new roster early. Conte Forum crowds have been waiting a long time for a team worth believing in; the student section remembers the Post year and wants more of it.
Grant’s final season had its small mercies. The Eagles closed the regular season by topping Notre Dame, and guards like Fred Payne — whose scoring jumped to 8.6 points per game — and Chase Forte gave the fan base something to hold onto. Forte’s tribute to his coach said plenty about the culture Grant built even as the wins dried up: “I learned from him how to just show up every day, roll your sleeves up, get to work.” It wasn’t enough to save the job, but it’s the kind of foundation Murray can build on rather than tear down.
Conte Forum itself remains one of the ACC’s sleeping giants. The 8,600-seat arena on the Chestnut Hill campus has hosted some of the great nights in Boston college basketball — and in a pro-sports town that loves a winner, a relevant BC team would fill it in a hurry. The students still show up for the big ones; the band still brings it. What the building has lacked is a product worth the trip, and that’s the cruelest part of the drought: the ingredients are all here.
What Murray is really selling is belief. Boston College has the academics, the city, the conference and the history — everything except recent winning. Seventeen years without an NCAA tournament at an ACC school is an institutional failure, and the new coach knows the only currency that matters is March. The Eagles don’t need to be Duke tomorrow. They need to be competitive in January, dangerous in February, and playing meaningful basketball in March. For the first time in years, there’s a reason to watch the Heights again — and his last name doesn’t hurt.
