SAME FEDORA-NEW CROWN?

[PointGuard]

Marius Witt, PF

I don’t know whether to be excited or just let out a big yawn. We now have the 3rd head coach for our team as I enter my 4th season at BC. I hear that that since his name is Fred Aura and he always wears a fedora hat, his players have taken to referring to him as Fed-aura (or Fedora) and calling him Coach Fed. This coach has at least developed a winning team before he got here with a habit of getting his team into the Big Dance. And he talks a good game. But talk is cheap. And with just one season left for me I really don’t expect him to make enough of an impact to change what’s been a series of dismal seasons I’ve had to endure here at BC.

[PointGuard]

Omari Aura, Frederick’s oldest son:

I didn’t want to move away from the friends I’d made in Towson. But now that I’m here, I’m getting used to Boston. Malik and I have been admitted to Boston College High School. I’ll be a junior this year. School has yet to start so nothing I can say about it. But the school’s basketball coach, Coach Murrow got together with us and arranged for us to attend summer basketball camps. And these camps have been GREAT!

In Towson I attended a public school. We had a pretty good basketball team, but this parochial school seems to recruit almost as much as colleges do. So this team is loaded with good players. Coach Murrow said he thought I had a good chance of starting at either PF or SF. He didn’t say that for Malik. But even though my brother will be a freshman, I wouldn’t count him out. He’s been learning from me since he was an itty-bitty kid and has some natural talents I wish I had and his outside shot is a thing of beauty. He’s still growing so will be contesting for a guard position. I’d love for us both to be on the court at the same time. We sort of just naturally know what the other one is going to do.

Devany is going to be a 3rd grader this year. She likes playing soccer and is pretty good for her age. But Mom has her also taking ballet classes and piano lessons. It’s hard to know which activity she likes best. She’ll be going to a good Catholic elementary school when school starts late this summer. This summer she’s been going with Mom who has been helping Grandma with her cancer treatments most every day.

Besides helping Grandma, Mom has begun a job with the BC School of Nursing. She is working on some research projects plus doing some counseling and tutoring of some of the nursing students, so she can schedule work around at she’s doing with Grandma.

Dad’s trying to spend as much time with us as he can but also has to spend a bunch of time getting ready to lead his new team. It’s going to be great to see a lot of great teams playing against BC.

[PointGuard]

Robert Wilson, 3rd Assistant Coach

Great news today. Sophomore SG James Lilly was nominated for the Norton Award. James will be our team leader and most likely top scorer. He’s an excellent defender and a real ball-hawk. He’s a tremendous rebounder for a guard. Hopefully this honor and the chance to actually win the award will motivate him to do even better this season than he would have otherwise.

[PointGuard]

Frederick Aura



As we began to approach the time when we would be making some final recruiting decisions, I was impressed by the quality and quantity of the recruits who were showing interest in our program. But we only had one scholarship to offer. This not only meant we’d be passing on some excellent players but that our class structure will continue to be askew. I prefer to have 2-4 players in each class on our roster. But if we only are able to add a single freshman, the season after this present season we’d have 3 seniors, 5 juniors, 4 sophomores and just the one freshman.

I then reviewed the players on our roster for this season. One player stood out…freshman SF Tony Johnson. I reviewed his high school film carefully and evaluated how he’s done at camps this summer. He’s really not ready to play for us and his potential appears to be limited as well. There’s no one skill that stands out in a positive way. When he gets the ball, he has shown a strong tendency to just loft up shots rather than drive and most of his shots were from way outside. That hasn’t resulted in a lot of points, so he’ll be a liability on the court as far as I’m concerned. I hate cutting scholarship players, but I just don’t see him ever contributing for us. I called him in and explained the situation, saying if he stays on the team he’s almost certainly going to be redshirted. He wasn’t happy about this, saying he came here to play, not be redshirted or ride the bench. I told him that was an unrealistic expectation here at Boston College and that if he wants to play as a freshman he probably should consider trying to latch on with either a Division 2 or 3, NAIA, or JC team. I told him I’d help him find a new program if he wants my help. He said he understood and the cut was made. So, now rather than 1 scholarship we have 2 scholarships to offer this year.

[PointGuard]

Chris Evans, 2nd Assistant (Recruiting) Coach:

We're reaching crunch time as far as summer recruiting goes. It’s time to do some home visits and make scholarship offers. Coach Aura and I are agreed we’d like to get a SF and a big man with the 2 scholarships we now will be filling.

So today, he got together with me and the other assistants. He wants us all to review the films stand notes we have on our top candidates, each jot down our notes and evaluations and then as a group go over each candidate. We trimmed down a slightly larger list of candidates to 4 SF’s and 7 C/PF’s. I’ll summarize our group comments on each of those recruits:

SF’s:

Sam Dickens: Everyone was impressed by his defense and scoring ability from both inside and outside. He’s a good passer and is athletic. Other than maybe free throw shooting, he has no real big holes in his abilities. He was in the top 25 at the Indy Elite camp and the top 10 at the Big Apple Showcase. While he’s interested in us, it will take a helluva sales job to get him to commit.

Greg Smith: An outstanding rebounder and a strong scorer from inside and outside. His defense is ok but can be improved, but he’s a hard worker. We’re pretty high on his top 10.

Adam Joseph: Great scorer, particularly from outside. He’s a good passer and pretty strong defensively. Needs to work on his rebounding, but is also a hard worker. Was in the Top 10 at the Las Vegas Revue. Since he’s from Arizona and location is important, it might be difficult to beat out teams from that area.

Quinton Bass: A very good scorer…more so from outside. Very good passer and ball handler. Not particularly athletic but hasn’t had any injury problems.

PF’s:

Matt Samuels: Excellent defensively. A good scorer, particularly from inside. Outstanding rebounder. Good passer. Not strong athletically. Poor free throw shooter. Was in the Top 25 at the Big Apple Showcase.

Alan Yeager: Excellent rebounder. Great scorer from inside and outside. Strong defensively but surprisingly week shot blocker and at getting steals. Bad at the free throw line. Needs to work on his ball handling.

Rico Reid: Excellent scorer particularly from inside. Very athletic. Weak defensively. Needs to improve his rebounding. Not a hard worker.

Courtland Reese: Good scorer particularly from inside. Outstanding rebounder. Very good defensively, including being a strong shot blocker. Good passer but poor ball handler. Poor free throw shooter. Top 10 at the Big Apple Showcase.

Marion Heath: Excellent defender, scorer, and rebounder. Weak athletically, at the free throw line, and at stealing and shot blocking, but a hard worker.

Lance Hannah: While not outstanding in any one skill area, very strong in all skills. Very good shooter from both inside and outside. Not injury problems. We’re at the very top of his Top 10.

William Cornell: Like Hannah, he’s strong across the board. Inside scoring is very strong. Harder worker.

We decided that while any of these recruits would be positive additions to our team, Coach Aura will make his first 4 home visits to SF’s Dickens and Smith and to big men Samuels and Reese.

[PointGuard]

Janeka Aura, wife of Coach Aura

My job with Boston College’s William F. Connell School of Nursing is a mix of counselling and support of nursing students and research for various school of nursing programs. While I work at the school at times, I also am able to do some functions online at home.



Therefore since moving to Boston, I’ve been able to get over to be with my mother most every day. She’s putting up a good fight and trying to be positive, but chemo is playing hell with her body. I know she’s happy that we are now in the area. And my father is definitely appreciative of having the extra support for her.

Fred and our kids have really been helpful also. They’ve spent time with my parents also and helped to lighten some of the darker moments for my mother.

Omari and Malik have integrated well into their new high school and are now playing on the school’s basketball team. Devany is a happy 3rd grader. She’s not only playing soccer, but has begun learning field hockey which is popular in the area. She also takes piano lessons and goes to ballet school, but soccer seems to be her primary interest outside school.

[PointGuard]

Jason Braxton, Athletic Director


Boston College Campus

Allll-riiight! Things are really looking up already for BC basketball. Coach Aura and his staff have filled both available scholarships and it’s not yet October!
We have verbal acceptances of scholarships from two recruits:

We landed Sam Dickens immediately in mid-September. He’s a 6’ 8’ who will be a high school senior this year in North Berwick, Maine. We thought there were a lot of schools ahead of us on his top 10 list, but Coach Aura must have said all the right things and we moved all the way to the top immediately after the first home visit. Coach Aura went right back to his home the next week and Dickens agreed to play for us. As a junior last year he averaged 19.2 ppg and 5.3 rpg. He was impressive at the two summer camps he attended. He’s that good of a scorer, defender and rebounder. His size allows him to work effectively inside and he has a sweet outside shot as well.

One week later we got the second acceptance following repeat home visits by Coach Aura. Courtland Reese is a 6’9” C from Windham, Maine. Reese scored 14.0 ppg and pulled down 8.5 rpg as a junior. Courtland is a monster on the boards and scores well inside. He’s good defensively and is a devastating shot blocker. He was a Top 10 player in the Big Apple Showcase. I suspect he also could be a starter for us as a freshman.

I’m excited to land both of these guys and believe each one can be an impact player for us next season. They give me faith that we’ve begun our upward journey to a rejuvenation of basketball for Boston College.

Coach Aura pointed out to me how little we have left in our recruiting budget as a way of letting me know he feels we need an increase for next year. I let him know the college is presently on an austerity program so not to expect any increases for a couple years.

On another front I scheduled some pretty tough teams for our preconference home games, but reasonable not to schedule top teams on the road for our preconference games. With how tough the AAC is, we’ll need a bunch of wins during preconference play to have a chance of achieving that goal. The tougher home schedule will enable Coach Aura to prepare the team for the more talented teams we will encounter when ACC play begins.

[PointGuard]

Problems in Paradise

Coach Aura



As we were nearing the end of the practice season, freshman SG Morrow Strong continually was giving other players cheap shots when he thought he could get away with it. That earned him a trip to my office. He refused to take responsibility and tried to place the blame on others. I tried taking a low-key approach, but his temper flared and he showed no respect for me or anyone on the team. I told him that I was going to suspend him and he flew off the handle, saying, “That’s B--- S---! I don’t have to take this crap.” And he stormed out of the room.

After reflecting on what had just happened, I talked to my assistant coaches. They said he’d had a really bad attitude ever since he got here and was a consistent disruptive force on the team. His skill level had had me planning to redshirt him, but I decided it just wasn’t worth putting up with someone that was going to poison the team. So I cut him which dropped our roster to 11 scholarship players plus 2 walk-ons. Strong had a poor relationship with the team, so I don’t expect my cutting him will have any repercussions. Actually it will serve notice to let the team know I don’t put up with a guy who is disrespectful to teammates and the coaching staff.

Another positive is that it opens another scholarship to offer this season. But it’s risky since our remaining budget is low and we’re past the primary recruiting season. Chris Evans, my recruiting assistant, and I put our heads together to review the recruits on our list to determine who we’d offer the scholarship to. Since we already have a big man and SF who have given us verbals and both will be freshmen next year, we decided to offer the remaining scholarship to a JC point guard from Indiana who is a frikkin’ passing magician. It’s a long shot that we will get him, though, since we’re late to the table and he’s outside our region. I’m hoping that the chance to come to a premier college near Boston plus play in the ACC will be a strong influence on him.

We had one other freshman on our roster who we had considered redshirting, but now with 13 rather that 15 players on our roster, I decided to not redshirt anyone this year. I figure we can get him some minutes on the floor in some of our games that may develop him quicker than if he were redshirted…and if we have injuries, we may need the depth he adds.

[PointGuard]

Time for the 2025-2026 Season to Kick-off

Kevin Abney, 1st Assistant Coach

Practice season is over and time for the pre-conference schedule to begin.



Practices went well in October and early November. We have two very good players. Sophomore James Lilly at SG is our best player as evidenced by his nomination for the Norton Award. He should be our best scorer, and while he’s only 6’0”, he’s an amazingly good rebounder. Inside senior PF Marius Witt is a great rebounder and he likely will be our second-best scorer. C Jason Caldwell is a freshman but will start. He has some good natural talent but will take some time to compete strongly against Division I competition. We’re weaker at PG and SF. Junior Willis Lofton will start at PG. He’s not a strong scorer but is a good defender. At SF junior Earl Betts is the front-runner to start but may be challenged by sophomore Marvin Reese. Reese is a true PF but is a good outside shooter and a better rebounder than Betts. We’re obviously not a strong team, particularly within the ACC where we’re picked to finish 13th of 15 teams. So it could be a long difficult season. But if the team becomes a cohesive unit, we might pull off a few surprises. We’re excited to finally be able get the season underway. Our first game is on the road playing Dartmouth, but then we return home to take on Bradley.

Coach Frederick Aura

Yes, it looks like we have to rely on two players carrying us this year. Senior Marius Witt is a very good all-around player and top-flight rebounder. James Lilly likes to catch and shoot, particularly from mid-range. He’s also very strong defensively and a heckuva ball-hawk. But beyond those two, there’s no one that has stood out thus far. We’ve still got some experimenting to do to see who can provide us the most to augment the abilities of Witt and Lilly. But you’ve got to start somewhere. And our recruiting this year has given me reason for optimism for the future.

Robert Wilson, 3rd Assistant (Scouting) Coach

Our first opponent, Dartmouth, doesn’t do anything unique offensively or defensively. Their strength definitely is with their guards. Both PG Ryan Sanders and SG Juan Price are excellent players and should provide most of their scoring. Playing them in their bandbox size gym could be a real snakepit.

I’m glad we’re playing Bradley in our second game at home. They’re pretty solid throughout their lineup. They’re redshirting a freshman SG who would probably bet a lot of minutes if he were on our team. Their greatest strength, though, comes from their interior players. So we’ll have our hands filled trying to contain them.

I’d love to see us put two games in the win column, but to be honest, I’ll be pleased if we gain a split in these two games this week.

Jason Braxton, AD

We’ve done a lot of marketing to try to fill seats this season. But we’re really selling on the premise of “get your season tickets now so you lock in your seats for future seasons.” I don’t think anyone is expecting us to be world-beaters this season. I’m sure Fred is missing the team strength he had created at Towson. I’m hoping we have a few surprises for some of our opponents, though.

[PointGuard]

Nov. 16, 2025: Boston College Eagles (0-0) vs Dartmouth Big Green (0-1) at Edward Leede Arena in Hanover, NH

Father Daniel Marston

One of the Jesuit priests or brothers from the Jesuit Community at BC accompanies the team on each road trip. Some of the priests and brothers latch onto these opportunities, not for the basketball, but just as a way of getting a nice free trip. But I like basketball. Played it in high school, but wasn’t never a good player…JV until my senior year and then just a seldom used reserve. Unless a player wants to talk or some counseling (which doesn’t occur that often), the only real official function I perform is to get together with the players and coaches in the locker room before the game to offer a prayer and then a quick group prayer after the game…and maybe also serve as a tacit reminder for them not to get into trouble during the trip.

Dartmouth lost a road game but their starting guard duo combined to score 37 points in that game and 4 of their starters scored in double figures.

The teams played equally for the first 5 minutes but then our defense solidified and we gradually pulled out to a 23-12 lead at the midpoint of the first half. We held Dartmouth’s shooting to just 31% from the field for the half while knocking down 54% of ours. That resulted in a solid 41-26 halftime advantage for us. SG Samuel King came off the bench to score 11 points.

Our defense continued to stymie the Big Green in the 2nd half and we steadily increased our lead to pull of a lopsided 76-44 victory. We outshot Dartmouth 55% to 28% and hit 50% of our 3’s. We also were +6 in rebounds. Sitting behind our bench, I got a good chance to observe how our new coach handled the players and worked the refs…he’s got a bit of a temper, but controlled things well and the players responded well to his direction.

Reserves Marvin Reese and Samuel King led our scoring with 17 and 13 points, respectively. Starting PG Willis Lofton dropped in 11 points. Having been a perennial sub, I was happy to see the bench players do so well.

During the post-game press conference, Coach Aura said, “I was blown away by how well our reserves played. They scored 43 of our 76 points. Samuel and Marvin had amazing games. I was pleased that all 11 of our players that got into the game scored. Topping all that was our stellar defense for the final 35 minutes of the game that simply shut down Dartmouth.”