Boston College’s Luke Murray will make his regular-season debut as a college head coach on Tuesday night when the Eagles open their season against Wagner in Chestnut Hill, Mass.
Murray spent the past five seasons as an assistant at UConn and has overhauled the BC roster with 13 new players, including 11 transfers from nine conferences.
“I think we’re going to build a good basketball program,” Murray said. “The product on the court is going to be a good one. It’s a fun group of kids showing a lot of progress over the last couple months. Excited to get going.”
BC’s key additions include Money Williams, who averaged 20.6 points, 4.7 assists and 4.3 rebounds a game last season at Montana. Williams was named the 2026 Big Sky tournament MVP.
Zak Smrekar, a freshman from Slovenia, and George Washington transfer Luke Hunger each figure to have a significant role for the Eagles this season as well. Smrekar started in each of BC’s two preseason scrimmages, and Hunger averaged 8.4 points and 5.1 rebounds for George Washington last season.
Murray, who spent one season (2010-11) as an assistant at Wagner, said making the NCAA Tournament is the goal in his first season at BC, which finished 11-20 overall and 4-14 in the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2025-26.
“Size at the five (center) is something we’re lacking a little bit,” said Murray, the son of actor Bill Murray. “We’ll have to rely on the depth of the team throughout the course of the year. For us right now it’s about building eight, nine, 10 and not having much of a drop-off. At the moment I’d say we’re comfortable with seven or eight.”
Wagner (14-17, 8-10 in 2025-26) was picked to finish fifth out of nine teams in the Northeast Conference coaches’ poll this season. The Seahawks will rely on transfers Tajae Jones (Siena), Cam Estevez (Fairfield) and Taj Bryant (Sacred Heart).
“Everybody has the same goal in mind,” said Estevez, who averaged 3.6 points a game last season. “Everybody is hungry. We have a lot of people who came from (other) Division I schools trying to prove a point.”
Wagner coach Dwan McMillan, who had the interim tag removed from his title in the offseason, said rebounding will be the key to Wagner’s success.
“That’s the No. 1 thing,” he said. “We want to control the paint, control the boards. We hang our hat on the defensive end.”
