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Keep an eye on Boston College next season

ACC Basketball Tournament: Boston College v Miami (FL)

GREENSBORO, NC - MARCH 15: Ryan Anderson #12 of the Boston College Eagles dunks against the Miami Hurricanes during the quarterfinals of the ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament at the Greensboro Coliseum on March 15, 2013 in Greensboro, North Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

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Boston College’s season came to an end on Friday afternoon, as the Eagles lost to Miami in the quarterfinals of the ACC tournament, 69-58.

The Eagles will leave Greensboro disappointed with the outcome, as they erased an early 13 point deficit to take the lead at the half. The score was tied at 55 with three minutes left in the game, before BC had a couple of bad turnovers and Miami finally found a rhythm offensively.

It’s a tough way to end the year, but it also was another promising performance for a Boston College team that looks like it has a very bright future.

We can start with Olivier Hanlon, who managed to score 15 points on Friday despite being blanketed by a Miami defense that didn’t want to see him pull off a repeat of Thursday’s 41 point performance against Georgia Tech. Hanlon, a freshman, led the Eagles in scoring by averaging 15.4 points.

But Hanlon wasn’t even the best player on BC for the first half of the season. That title belongs to Ryan Anderson, a 6-foot-8 sophomore and double-double machine that finished the year averaging 14.8 points and 8.0 boards. In fact, there is only one senior and one junior on BC’s roster, and they averaged less than 20 minutes combined this season.

Think about that.

This group of freshmen and sophomores went 16-17 overall and 7-11 in the ACC. They beat Virginia and Maryland this season and lost to both Miami and Duke at home by a single point. In fact, throughout the entire ACC schedule, there were only three games where the Eagles were blown out: at Duke, at Miami and at North Carolina State. I think we can get over the fact that one of the youngest teams in the country lost on the road by a lot to the three most talented teams in the league.

The bottom-line is this: I’m not trying to tell you that BC is going to win the ACC next season. Far from it. The league was down this year as a whole, and that likely played a role in the Eagle’s success.

But there is some young talent on this roster, and those guys -- Hanlon, Anderson, Patrick Heckmann, Joe Rahon -- are only going to get better.

Mark it down now: Steve Donahue’s team is going to be a trendy sleeper pick come next October.

You can find Rob on twitter @RobDauster.