Earl Grant fully believes he has the college basketball program at Boston College on the right track. His record over the last 42 games would indicate otherwise.
Although the Eagles are unlikely to make a change at this point in the year, his seat could very quickly turn from lukewarm to scorching hot with another season below .500.
Grant must find a way to start winning college basketball games if he wants to secure his job. A sudden flurry of replies to fans on social media earlier this week does not help the optics of his current situation.
Boston College lost again.
The men’s basketball program at Boston College is by no means a powerhouse. It has not reached the NCAA Tournament since 2009. It has only two winning seasons in the last 15 years.
All of this goes to say that the expectations in (on?) Chestnut Hill are not super high. And yet, Al Skinner was fired as head coach in 2010 after he led the Eagles to seven March Madness appearances in 13 years. His replacement, Steve Donahue, got fired after only four seasons. Jim Christian somehow managed to last six full seasons despite only one year with a winning record.
Christian was replaced by Early Grant, who left the College of Charleston for Boston College in 2021.
The Eagles are trying to get things right. They showed progress in years one and two of the Grant era. They won 20 games in year three! Things were trending in the right direction. There was positive momentum for a program that was dead in the water.
However, Boston College did not make the NCAA Tournament in 2023-24 despite the winning record. It immediately fell off of a cliff at 12-19 last season. A two-point loss to UMass on Wednesday night dropped the Eagles to 5-6 this season.
Grant has 20 regular season games left on the schedule to turn things around. This team could go on a run to the national title. We’ll see!
If the Eagles do not start to win games, Grant’s seat will get hotter. He may not get fired after this season because of various circumstances outside of his control (NIL, etc.) but a head coach has to win games to keep his job long term. That’s just how it works. Ask Skinner, Donahue or Christian.
Earl Grant replied to fans on social media.
There have not been a lot of fans at the Conte Forum this season. The fans who do show up get as loud as they can but there are not many of them.
The crowd was mostly empty for the first few games of the non-conference schedule.
That leads us to Tuesday night. Earl Grant started replying to Boston College fans (and critics) on social media. All of responses were in reply to a post about BYU star AJ Dybantsa.
He mostly encouraged the fans to “keep coming,” as in keep showing up and bringing that same energy.
And then he made a comment about the starting lineup.
What does it mean? Your guess is as good as mine.
All I know for certain is that Boston College lost to UMass on Wednesday night, less than 24 hours after Grant replied to fans and critics on social media. This is how he explained the behavior:
Earl Grant on last night’s interactions on X and his message to fans going forward: pic.twitter.com/R0GoKjHXzc
— Nick Petralia (@NickPetralia_) December 11, 2025
It will be interesting to see whether we hear from Grant on social media in the next few weeks. Maybe this was a one-and-done kind of thing. Maybe he is going to keep replying.
Either way, none of it matters if he does not win games.