One of the top mid-major head coaches that is being floated to take the Boston College men’s basketball job is Tulsa’s Eric Konkol. Konkol is a Wisconsin native that started his coaching career in 2000, has had stops along the way at Tennessee, George Mason, and Miami, and now is finishing up his 11th season as a head coach. BC has a long history of hiring head coaches from successful mid-major programs (Earl Grant, Jim Christian, Steve Donahue, Al Skinner, and more), and Konkol fits the bill as someone who could be next in line.
Why he’d be interested:
A job in the ACC is a clearer path to the NCAA tournament, higher conference payouts, and more national viewers. Plus living in Boston is nice. But, as I will dig into further down, the job at BC is not necessarily better than at Tulsa.
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Why it could work:
Konkol has a lengthy positive track record as the head coach of Louisiana Tech and Tulsa. After LA Tech’s Mike White was poached by Florida, Konkol got his first ever head coaching job with the Bulldogs in 2015. He continued to build on the strong foundation that White had laid out, winning 20+ games in six of his seven seasons. LA Tech never made an NCAA tournament appearance in that stretch, but his team did achieve a third-place finish in the 2021 NIT.
In 2022, Konkol left Louisiana Tech to be the head coach of the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes. Tulsa had taken a tumble in the several seasons prior to Konkol’s arrival, going from 20+ wins and two NCAA tournament appearances from 2013-2016, to a middling .500 record in 2021 and then an 11-20 record that got head coach Frank Haith fired in 2022. In just four seasons, Konkol righted the ship and brought Tulsa to a 26-7 record and NIT appearance in 2026.
He achieved that Tulsa turnaround with an influx of talent through the transfer portal and recruiting. None of Tulsa’s top-5 scorers in 2025-26 were at the school in 2024-25. Senior and junior leaders David Green, Tylen Riley, Miles Barnstable, and Ade Popoola all transferred in from Rhode Island, Cal Baptist, St. Thomas, and Moberly Area Community College, respectively. He also added 3-star freshman Jaylen Lawal to round out the line-up. Konkol has shown an ability to adapt to the changing landscape of college athletics and create a winning team through the portal.
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That team composed of several transfers scored 85.6 points per game this season, which was 15th in the entire country. And their strength of schedule (129th) wasn’t all that far off from Boston College’s (81st).
Why it wouldn’t work:
While we don’t know the specifics of the total budget available to support men’s basketball at either Boston College or Tulsa, public numbers suggest that the athletic support at Tulsa is similar or greater than at BC. Why would Konkol jump ship for a lateral move?
From BC’s perspective, this would be a very solid hire. Konkol doesn’t have any ties to recruiting in the Northeast, but he checks all of the other boxes. He was an assistant coach in the ACC, he has shown a capability to succeed in difficult circumstances, and he is adept at navigating recruiting and the transfer portal. BC could do a lot worse.
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But then again, is this really a winning strategy? We’ve seen BC bring in Jim Christian and Earl Grant, two semi-successful mid-major head coaches with little ties to the area, who then failed to gain any traction in Chestnut Hill. Grant seemed like a good culture-builder, but had many fatal flaws when it came to actual coaching and game-planning. Christian’s teams struggled with turnovers and closing out games, among a host of other things. Konkol seems like a promising candidate now, but does BC really want to bet that his abilities will translate to the ACC level? We’ve already seen coaches with a similar profile flame out here.
How likely is the hire?
I have my doubts that Konkol is all that interested in this job. If he continues to do well at Tulsa, there will be other power conference schools with more resources interested in hiring him. But if he wants to make the jump to a power conference quickly, and the appeal of living in Boston is high for him, it’s a move that could make sense. For these reasons I would not put him in the group of the top-3 most likely hires, but he is certainly a top candidate for Boston College.
