Luke Murray looks to end the longest NCAA Tournament drought for a Power Four school in his first season with the Eagles and his first head coaching job. A key assistant with UConn for five seasons, including two that ended with an NCAA championship, the 41-year-old Murray brings a nearly completely overhauled roster in search of the school’s first tourney berth since 2009.
Senior guard Money Williams comes from Montana after leading the Big Sky in scoring
with 20.6 points per game. The 6-foot-4 Williams was the Big Sky Tournament MVP, scoring 91 points in three games and is one of six players in the school’s history to reach 1,000 points, 300 rebounds and 300 assists. … Senior shooting guard Ernest Shelton comes from nearby Merrimack, where he averaged 34.6% on 3-point attempts. … Aly Tounkara, a 7-foot transfer from Arkansas State, averaged 4.3 points, 5.5 rebounds and a block in 18.3 minutes per game. ... Jacob Furphy, a 6-foot-5 guard, came with Murray from UConn. He played sparingly with the Huskies last season after coming in as a four-star recruit from Australia.
It’s an almost entirely a new roster for Murray with only two returning player: redshirt freshman forward Jack Bailey and Will Eggemeier. The Eagles have 13 new faces on a squad that looks to learn Murray’s offensive system, which helped the Huskies’ run.
The Eagles open the season at home against Wagner on Nov. 3 and have an interesting intrastate matchup in their second game at TD Garden against Massachusetts three days later. They travel to Georgia on Dec. 1 in the ACC/SEC challenge before opening conference play at home against North Carolina on Jan. 2 and have a home matchup against expected league power Duke on Jan. 16.
BC was last in the league last season in scoring (65.1 points per game), shooting (41.0%) and 3-point shooting (29.6%). … The Eagles have had three head coaches since their last tourney berth under Al Skinner.
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