Boston College got a taste of the national spotlight for the first time in the Steve Donahue era when it participated in the Old Spice Classic over Thanksgiving weekend in Kissimmee, Florida.
All three of the Eagles' games were televised on the ESPN family of networks, giving the entire nation a look at Boston College's men's basketball program.
It also offered fans in the Boston area a chance to hear what the national take is on this years Eagles team. Bob Picozzi and Dan Dakich called all three of Boston College's games in the tournament and had pretty nice things to say about the Eagles' program.
Boston College won two of its three games in the tournament, edging Texas A&M 67-65 in the opener, losing to Wisconsin 65-55 in the semifinals and topping California 68-46 in the third-place game on Sunday.
Naturally, most of the talk centered around new coach Steve Donahue and his coaching style. They praised Donahue's performance at Cornell last year when he took the team to the Sweet 16, which is a rarity in the Ivy League.
In typical ESPN fashion, the worldwide leader had its fun calling Eagles junior guard Reggie Jackson "Mr. November" whenever it could, making the obvious reference to the Yankees great with the same name.
Picozzi and Dakich offered high praise of Jackson. At one point, the duo said that Jackson was the hottest player in the Atlantic Coast Conference. That's hard to argue with, as Jackson has been Boston College's runaway MVP through its first six games. In the Old Spice Classic, Jackson averaged 16.6 points, 3.6 rebounds and 3.6 assists.
Jackson is averaging a team-high 19 points and 4.4 assists following the preseason tournament. He scored 17 points in the season-opener against St. Francis (NY), a career-high 30 points against Yale and nine points versus Holy Cross.
While Picozzi and Dakich generally spoke highly of Boston College, they did tend to harp of senior center Josh Southern. Southern logged 42 minutes in the tournament, scoring 18 points. However, the two announcers didn't shy away from mentioning how out of shape Southern looked.
Southern has been struggling ever since coming back from intestinal surgery in the offseason, but has been making progress, albeit slowly.
The Eagles return home for a Wednesday night showdown with Big Ten foe Indiana in the annual ACC/Big Ten Challenge at 7:15 p.m. ET. Boston College will get another chance to shine on national television, as Wednesday night's game will be aired on ESPNU.
The yearly challenge pits teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference against teams from the Big Ten. In 2009, the Big Ten won the challenge for the first time since its creation in 1999. Boston College has an all-time record of 4-0 in the challenge since it joined the ACC back in 2005. Of those four losses, two came at Conte Forum.
After that, the Eagles face Massachusetts in the Commonwealth Classic on December 4th at 6:30 p.m. ET. This year, the game will be played at TD Garden and will be television on Comcast Sportsnet. Boston College leads the all-time series 25-18 since the two teams first met in 1906.