Donahue's scheduling logic

Basketball practice officially begins today. This is exciting news for what should be an exciting season. Much of the excitement will come from BC's overly challenging schedule. We've discussed the out of conference slate before, but last week in an ESPN article, Donahue explained why he gave his still young team such a challenge.

Donahue believes some of the beefed-up conferences will be so brutal that a strong nonconference performance might be enough to boost a team with a so-so conference record into the postseason.
"When a 9-7 Boise State from the Mountain West makes the NCAA tournament and an 11-7 Virginia from the ACC doesn't, I think in my position, I gotta wake up," Donahue said. "And that's what we did. We analyzed really our schedule. ... I don't want to be 12-1 [in the nonconference] with an RPI in triple digits and then have to win 13 games in the ACC."
And then there's the entertainment factor, which can't be dismissed.
"The other reason for me is I want to attract as many teams as we can that will excite our fan base," the BC coach said.

I keep saying BC will be a bubble team this year. That is probably not accurate. We will either be in or out based on our record. There won't be any ambiguity because our Strength of Schedule and RPI should be very high.

I don't know if Donahue's gamble will work. I assume it will because if he succeeds, he will have done everything the selection committee asks. And if he fills some more seats at Conte, we are better for it.

Red Zone issues and other links

CBS's ACC bloggers looked at conference scoring so far and we are at the bottom of the conference when it comes to red zone conversion. It's a somewhat misleading stat considering we've only played two games and fumbled a sure touchdown out of the endzone. But BC does need to improve and needs to score more. With our defense I think we'll be in a lot of high scoring games.

CBS also posted a solid preview of our matchup against Northwestern.

Kudos to ESPNBoston.com's Jack McCluskey. The season is still young but he's been producing good and original coverage of BC football. His latest was a post on BC's receivers.

BC runner Moira Kenny earned ACC cross country performer of the week honors.

The ACC named Volleyball's Katty Workman freshman of the week.