Earl Grant, who coached the College of Charleston for seven seasons, is the new men’s basketball coach at Boston College. Gerry Broome/Associated Press
BOSTON — Boston College hired Earl Grant as its basketball coach on Monday, bringing in the man who led the College of Charleston to the NCAA tournament in the hopes he can do the same for the Eagles.
Grant, who had a 127-89 record in seven seasons with the Cougars, replaces Jim Christian, who was fired with three weeks remaining in his seventh season. BC hasn’t been to the NCAA tournament since 2009.
“My family and I are really excited about the opportunity to start a new journey,” Grant said. “I look forward to representing such a prestigious academic institution, to coach in the top basketball conference in America, and do it in one of the best cities in the world.”
Under Grant, Charleston won the Colonial Athletic Association regular-season and tournament championship in 2018 for its first NCAA appearance in almost two decades. The school was one of 21 Division I programs with players selected in each of the past two NBA drafts.
Grant took over the Cougars in 2014, a year after they left the Southern Conference and went 14-18 (6-10 CAA). They won nine games his first season, 17 in his second and 25 in his third – the first of three consecutive 20-win seasons.
The news release announcing his hiring also noted that the academic progress rate at Charleston for 2018-19 was in the top 10% of men’s basketball programs nationally – a first for the school. Grant was a finalist for the 2019 Skip Prosser Man of the Year Award, given to a coach who achieves success on the basketball court and displays moral integrity off of it.
“We set out to find a leader of young men, someone who shares our vision and our values, who could lead our program to championships while ensuring a world-class student-athlete experience and education for our players,” BC Athletic Director Pat Kraft said. “Earl is exactly what we were looking for and what our basketball program needs at this moment and I am confident he will have tremendous success in Chestnut Hill, on the court and off.”
A Charleston, South Carolina, native, Grant played for Georgia College before embarking on a coaching career that took him to The Citadel, Winthrop, Wichita State and Clemson. At Wichita State from 2007-10, he was on the staff of Greg Marshall when the Shockers went from 11-20 to 25-10 in three seasons.
Boston College has finished above .500 in the Atlantic Coast Conference just four times since leaving the Big East in 2005, the last in 2010-11.
Christian went 78-132 (26-94 ACC) in seven years in Chestnut Hill. He was fired last month with a 3-13 record (1-9 ACC); with assistant Scott Spinelli as interim coach, the Eagles won one of their final four games.
DEPAUL: DePaul fired Coach Dave Leitao six years into his second tenure in another effort to lift a once-proud program. Leitao coached the Maine Red Claws for one season, 2011-12.
The Blue Demons went 5-14 overall in a season that started about a month late because of COVID-19 issues. They finished last in the Big East for the fifth straight year at 2-13.
DePaul beat Providence in the conference tournament before getting knocked out by Connecticut. Now, the search for a new coach is under way.
“After evaluating where our men’s basketball program is currently and where we envision it to be moving forward, a decision was made to make a change in the head coaching position,” Athletic Director DeWayne Peevy said in a statement.
He thanked Leitao “for his many contributions to the program” and said a national search for the program’s 15th coach will begin immediately.
Leitao, signed through the 2023-24 season, was 127-146 over nine years at DePaul. He is 212-241 in 15 seasons as a college head coach, with stops at Northeastern and Virginia.
The Blue Demons went 58-34 from 2002 to 2005 with winning records in all three seasons as a member of Conference USA and its most recent NCAA tournament appearance in 2004 under Leitao. He returned after fpur years at Virginia and the team wasn’t as successful his second time around.
DePaul went 69-112 with losing records in four of the six years since Leitao returned in 2015 playing in the tough Big East. This season was particularly rough, with the Blue Demons posting their worst winning percentage (.263) since the 2010-11 team went 7-24 (.226).
IOWA: Coach Fran McCaffery signed a four-year contract extension through 2027-28 after leading the eighth-ranked Hawkeyes to the Big Ten tournament semifinals and their highest NCAA tournament seeding since 1987.
The Hawkeyes are 21-8 and finished third in the Big Ten regular season at 14-6. They’ve been ranked in the top 15 every week this season and peaked at No. 5 last week. The team is a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament and will play Grand Canyon on Friday in Indianapolis.
McCaffery’s annual base salary of $2.3 million for the next two seasons will remain unchanged. He took a 15% pay cut for this year to help the athletic department offset shortfalls caused by the pandemic. He is on track to receive longevity bonuses at the end of the next two seasons.
His annual salary will increase each of the last five years. Those increases were not announced.
IOWA STATE: Iowa State and Coach Steve Prohm have agreed to part ways after one of the worst seasons in the history of the program, Athletic Director Jamie Pollard announced.
The school said in a statement that Pollard and Prohm met in person Monday night and that Pollard would have additional comment Tuesday.
The Cyclones were 2-22 overall, 0-18 in the Big 12. They lost their last 18 games.
Iowa State hadn’t won so few games since 1924-25 and hadn’t gone winless in conference play since 1936-37.
KANSAS STATE: Forward Antonio Gordon has been released from his scholarship and will transfer for his junior season.
The 6-foot-9 forward from Lawton, Oklahoma, started 21 games and appeared in 27 more during his first two seasons with the Wildcats. The former three-star prospect averaged 4.9 points and 4.6 rebounds in just over 20 minutes per game.
He started 12 of 21 games this past season, averaging 5.8 points and 5.8 rebounds, before missing the regular-season finale with what Coach Bruce Weber called “total health issues” without providing specifics.
BUTLER: Guard Myles Tate will need offseason surgery after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee during last week’s Big East tournament.
Tate was injured in Thursday’s season-ending loss to No. 20 Creighton. The Bulldogs finished 10-15.
MINNESOTA: Minnesota fired Richard Pitino after the coach compiled a 54-96 regular-season record over eight years in the Big Ten and had only three conference finishes higher than 10th place.
The Gophers went 14-15 this season, dropping 11 of their last 14 games. They were 0-10 on the road, one of only three major conference teams in the country without a road win.
According to Pitino’s contract, the university will owe Pitino a $1.7 million buyout of his deal that had three years remaining. His base salary for 2020-21 was $2 million, below the median in the 14-team conference.
Hired at age 30 with one prior year of experience as a head coach at Florida International, Pitino guided the Gophers to an NIT championship in his first season. Only two NCAA Tournament appearances followed, though, in 2017 and 2019.
POLL: Gonzaga opened the season at No. 1. The Bulldogs never let go of that ranking.
Now, after a start-to-finish run atop The Associated Press poll, Coach Mark Few’s Bulldogs are focused on trying to become the first unbeaten national champion in more than four decades.
The Bulldogs (26-0) received all 60 first-place votes to stay atop the final poll, becoming the first team since Kentucky in 2014-15 to be No. 1 in every poll and the 14th overall. Gonzaga, named the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament on Sunday, will try to become the first unbeaten national champion since Indiana in 1976.
Seven of the teams that went wire-to-wire at No. 1 ended up winning the national championship, most recently when Duke claimed a second straight title in 1992. Two of the last three – UNLV in 1990-91 and the 2015 Kentucky team – carried unbeaten records into the NCAA tournament but lost in the Final Four.
Illinois jumped to No. 2 after winning the Big Ten tournament, swapping spots with Baylor – which fell one spot after spending 15 of 17 polls sitting in second place. Michigan was next at No. 4, with all three of those teams joining Gonzaga in earning No. 1 seeds for the NCAA tournament.
Alabama was No. 5, with the Crimson Tide reaching their highest ranking since December 2006 after winning the Southeastern Conference tournament for the first time since 1991. Houston, Ohio State, Iowa, Texas and Arkansas rounded out the top 10.
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
GEORGE WASHINGTON: Jennifer Rizzotti was fired as coach after one NCAA tournament trip in five years at the school.
GW went 9-14 this season.
Rizzotti went 72-74 as GW’s coach since being hired in April 2016. She is also an assistant coach for the U.S. women’s national team.
George Washington was 20-10 and went to the WNIT in her first year, then 19-14 with an NCAAs appearance in her second.
Rizzotti helped UConn win its first national championship in 1995 as a point guard and was elected to the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013.
She came to GW after 17 seasons as a coach at Hartford.
WASHINGTON: Washington fired Coach Jody Wynn after four seasons during which the Huskies were among the worst teams in the Pac-12 Conference.
Wynn was 38-75 overall and a miserable 11-58 in Pac-12 play. The Huskies never finished higher than ninth in the conference standings during any of her four seasons. They went 7-14 overall and 3-13 in conference play this season.
POLL: In one of the most unconventional seasons ever, UConn finished in a familiar place – at No. 1 in The Associated Press poll.
It’s the 16th time that the Huskies have completed the regular season as the top team in the poll. They received 23 first-place votes from a national media panel of 30 voters.
UConn paused activities early on in the season due to COVID-19 issues and didn’t play its first game until Dec. 12. The team ran through the Big East’s regular season and conference tournament finishing at 24-1 and is in line for a No. 1 seed in the women’s NCAA tournament when the field is announced Monday night.
The Huskies were No. 1 for the final five weeks of the season.
There were five teams ranked No. 1 this season – the second most in the poll’s history. Stanford, which spent six weeks atop the Top 25, finished at No. 2; the Cardinal received five first-place votes.
North Carolina State was No. 3, matching its best final ranking, achieved by the 1978 squad. The Wolfpack received the other two first-place votes. Texas A&M and Baylor rounded out the top five teams.
FOOTBALL
IOWA: Ladell Betts will return to coach running backs and George Barnett has been hired to coach the offensive line, Coach Kirk Ferentz said.
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