Boston College fires basketball coach Earl Grant. Eagles will seek 5th coach since last NCAA berth

BOSTON (AP) - Boston College has fired basketball coach Earl Grant after five seasons in which the Eagles never made the NCAA tournament and finished above .500 just once.

Grant was 72-92 overall and 30-67 in the Atlantic Coast Conference since coming to Chestnut Hill to replace Jim Christian in 2021. BC has not reached the tournament since Al Skinner's teams earned seven bids in nine years from 2001-09 - a period that spans four coaches, five athletic directors and two conferences. It is the longest NCAA slump in program history.

Grant, 49, had five straight winning seasons at the College of Charleston, winning the regular season and conference championships in 2018 for his only NCAA tournament berth and the Colonial Athletic Association's coach of the year award.

He showed improvement in his first three years at Boston College, going from 13 wins to 16 to 20, before dropping off over the last two seasons, winning just seven ACC games combined and missing the 15-team conference tournament in back-to-back years.

One of the early schools to change leagues in the NCAA's conference shuffling era, Boston College left the Big East for the ACC in 2005 but has struggled to find success in its revenue sports.

The BC men's 305-368 record since joining the conference is the worst in ACC history; the women's basketball team, which fired coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee last week, has not reached the NCAA tournament since 2006, its first year in the conference. The BC football team went 2-10 this season, winning once in the conference, has won one bowl game in a decade and hasn't won more than seven games since 2009.