The Boston College football and men’s basketball coaches received a big surprise this week when they were informed that their respective last-place finishes in the Atlantic Coast Conference this past year would, in fact, result in absolutely no compensation for future seasons.
“What do you mean we don’t get the top draft pick?” basketball head coach James Catholic reportedly responded after first learning the news on Thursday evening. “Are you saying they added a lottery? Wait, we don’t get any draft pick?!”
This revelation comes at a difficult time for BC’s money-making programs, which have already completed the worst Division-I conference record of all-time (0-26) and could use some serious help moving forward. Unfortunately, it won’t be coming in the form the two men at the helm had imagined.
“Hear me out on this one,” football head coach Stan Carvaggio said. “Wouldn’t it just make sense for the worst team in the league to get a better shot at the better dudes? I think that makes sense. I assumed our conference would be advanced enough to think the same way, but I guess any school can go after any recruit now.”
When asked, both coaches were quick to deny that they had been trying to “tank,” but acknowledged that in close games when nothing was really at stake, they told their players they “might as well lose” because it would help them in the future.
While there is some truth to this mindset in professional leagues, in which teams with lower records get better chances at receiving earlier draft picks and therefore better prospects, college doesn’t work that way at all.
“Huh,” Catholic said after his initial outburst. “If that’s true, how am I ever supposed to get recruits like Jared Dudley?”
This ‘tanking’ strategy by BC was first noticed by NCAA officials in early October, when football fell by a score of 3-0 to Wake Forest, a school that had also come up with the idea of losing every conference game of the season. That team, however, was no match for BC.
“We started off strong with a nice-and-easy 13-point loss to Syracuse,” Wake Forest head coach Maeve Dawson said. “I guess it made us a little too cocky.”
After the teams each traded punts, interceptions, and missed field goals in the first half, BC came out of the gate strong in the second with a fumble, tricking Wake into making a field goal. The Demon Deacons made it difficult for BC, forcing the team to miss another field goal and fumble two more times to remain off the scoreboard, and the Eagles still had to blow a play on the 1-yard line as time expired to secure the loss.
“There were so many chances in that game for us to get a win,” Carvaggio said. “I was tempted to call off the plan then and there and go for a third straight bowl game, but by that point we had firmly made up our minds to trust the process.”
Catholic had an easier time on his end, as his team was already projected to finish near the bottom of the conference. Yet an early 37-4 deficit against, again, Wake Forest, exceeded even his highest expectations.
“It was an unbelievable season,” he said, a tear falling down his cheek as he re-watched the final press conference of the year after a loss to Florida State in the ACC Tournament. “And that one was on national television to boot. I love my guys.”
This appears to be the first incident of true tanking in the history of the NCAA, since there is actually no reason that a team would try to lose games. This unprecedented coaching strategy has, however, provoked an interesting reaction among some recruits.
“The first time I had ever heard of Boston College was on SportsCenter one morning in February, when they were talking about how bad its teams were,” one high school senior said. “I was feeling pretty down about getting cut from JV last fall, but after hearing about BC, I think I’ll have a place to play next year.”
The NCAA is currently investigating the entire season for violations of wrongdoing, since tanking isn’t technically against the rules but the school “deserves punishment,” high-ranking official Robert Gudel told reporters. Investigators are currently following up on leads into whether the events from this past season have any connection to the infamous point-shaving scandal during the 1978-79 season, a time when BC basketball also stopped trying at times but was good enough to still win.
*This story is part of The Depths, a collection of humorous, fictional portrayals of campus life, written in the spirit of April Fools’ Day. Some names of “sources” have been changed to maintain ambiguity and humor.