Should we freak out about the Falzon stuff?

The New England basketball scene got a little controversial Tuesday when worded leaked out that BC was no longer recruiting Aaron Falzon. The problem came when Falzon, his family and his coach found out via Twitter instead of hearing directly from BC. Jim Christian and his staff can not publicly talk about recruits or explain why or how it happened, but through the backchannel rumormill, it is being said they told Falzon first. Yet his family and coach dispute the sequence. The only thing that most observers can agree on is that it wasn't handled well and now Christian has pissed off a local recruit at a regional power (Northfield Mount Hermon).

I don't care who Jim Christian recruits. If he thinks Falzon is not a great fit for his system and prefers Markus McDuffie as a power forward, that's fine. Christian -- not me -- has to coach the guys. But the problem comes in perception and execution. Despite not having a great recruiting reputation, Christian said winning in the ACC takes talent. He hired two ace recruiters for his staff. Now before they've even started practicing, there are questions about how this staff is working together and if Christian can close the guys Murphy and Spinelli serve up.

Although Christian hasn't thrown Donahue under the bus in publicly, he has made it clear to those close to the program that he has a different recruiting philosophy than our former coach. Falzon -- with his long range for a big man -- might have been the perfect Donahue player. Maybe he would have been lost at BC under Christian. That's fine. The staff certainly did their homework on him. However, they need to get better at communicating to recruits and they better hope that this didn't piss off Josh Sharma and that they close on McDuffie. It wouldn't hurt if McDuffie proves to be a better player than Falzon.

Can BC close on their rumored hoops prospects?

Earlier this week a flood of tweets and articles came out regarding Jim Christian's recruits (here, here and here). BC is in play for four elite 2015 prospects: Terance Mann, Donovan Mitchell, Josh Sharma, and Aaron Falzon. Recruiting a bunch of elite guys is an improvement. Getting mentioned by a bunch of elite prospects is an improvement. But none of it matters if Christian's staff doesn't close on a few of these guys.

In fairness to Donahue's recruiting, he was involved with Mann and Falzon. However, in most cases he was looking for certain types of players and often moved off elite guys if BC was getting ignored. That's not the case with the new staff. By all accounts they are bulldogs and are travelling more than their predecessors.

I think Christian will land at least one of these targets. Hopefully one will lead to another. Right now they are selling playing time and the opportunity to bring BC back. "Putting a ______ on the map" is an old trick of every struggling program, but it works.

Landing elite recruits doesn't guarantee anything. Skinner's most coveted class disappointed. Christian will still have to fill out his roster with a few mid-level guys and he will also have to prove that he can develop the talent once it is on campus. But for now we have hope...at least on Twitter.