For Boston College men’s basketball, the message from Luke Murray is clear: the bar is the NCAA Tournament, and nothing less.
Murray said as much directly, and the way he’s approached his first months in Chestnut Hill matches that ambition. He spent much of Sunday’s scrimmage quietly watching from the background, studying the action with a sharp eye. He offered encouragement after missed shots, made a few subtle reactions when players drifted out of place, and then, when assistant coach Mathew Johnson asked for a play to get UConn transfer Jacob Furphy involved, Murray pulled out a black ballpoint pen and sketched a design that looked like it could keep unfolding forever.
That kind of constant motion, constant invention, is exactly what people around the program see as Murray’s edge.
“It keeps turning over like a cog,” Furphy said. “It just keeps going and going and going and going, concept after concept. The more we can drill those concepts in, the more our plays will be executed perfectly.”
That offensive imagination is a big reason Boston College believes it can chase its first NCAA Tournament berth since 2009 this season. Murray has taken over a program that, in recent years, leaned hard into Earl Grant’s “Gritty, not pretty” identity, but often lacked the structure and discipline needed to finish high-level offensive possessions when the pressure climbed.
Now the Eagles have a different look. Murray, a two-time national champion assistant, has arrived with a nearly entirely new roster and staff, and those inside the program think that reset makes the NCAA Tournament a realistic target.
“That’s absolutely our goal,” Murray said. “A goal less than that is probably not worth having.
That’s our motivation. That’s what we’re pushing for and that’s what we’re pushing toward.”
The path to this point started back in March, while Murray was still immersed in UConn’s run. Before the Sweet 16 game against Michigan State, he looked at the contract sitting in his inbox just as Dan Hurley walked into the room.
Hurley asked what he thought, Murray said he was leaving, they hugged, and then the Huskies went back to work. UConn then beat Michigan State and Duke in dramatic fashion, Murray made his way to Boston College for his introductory press conference, and then flew to Indianapolis for the Final Four.
He said missing a practice for the first time in his life felt unusual, and juggling two jobs at once was not simple. Still, he appreciated that Boston College allowed him to finish the season at UConn.
The morning after the title game, the new job became real in a hurry. Murray said his BC email, which he did not yet know how to access, already had 12 notifications from players entering the portal. The rebuild had begun immediately.
“People had made their decisions. At the time, it felt daunting.”
From there, he started assembling the roster piece by piece, bringing in his own approach and leaning on HD Intelligence, a basketball analytics company, as part of the process. Murray, 41, said he dreamed as a kid of becoming an NBA general manager, and this job gives him a version of that role with full creative freedom.
“He’s always had that hunger, from my conversations with him, to lead his own program,” Johnson said.
A major chunk of Murray’s offseason work has also been off the court, where he’s spent much of his time fundraising through donors, alumni, and personal connections. He knows Boston College has to keep improving in that area, and he views that challenge as part of the job.
On the floor, the identity is taking shape. Murray wants movement, off-ball screens, shooting from everywhere, and switchable defense.
He wants the whole to be greater than any one player. Sunday’s scrimmage offered a glimpse of the pieces he has to work with, with Brandon Benjamin, Money Williams, Andrija Bukumirovic, Armoni Zeigler, Furphy, JB Frankel, Aly Tounkara, and Colby Duggan all standing out.
There is still time for the rotation to sort itself out, and Murray said spots remain open as he trims the group in the coming weeks. But the direction is already obvious: a new coach, a new system, and a program trying to turn all those ideas into something that ends with an NCAA bid.
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