NEWTON, Mass. -- A new era.

That’s one line in the pump-up video the Eagles played on the big screens in Conte Forum before their first home game, and it’s unequivocally true. A new era in BC basketball has begun.

This era’s so new -- nine freshmen, the most in the ACC -- the majority of the action shots the Eagles managed to scrounge up for the video came from preseason practices.

If you were at the Heights on Monday to watch the Eagles open the season with a 67-64 win over New Hampshire, chances are you didn’t recognize many of the faces in the white unis.

Chances also are you now know the name Patrick Heckmann.

The 6-foot-5, 196-pound freshman from Mainz, Germany, played a key role late for the Eagles as they withstood a Wildcats run.

“Pat’s a guy we have a lot of faith in,” guard John Cahill said. “Really comfortable when he has the ball in his hands. We know he’s going to make good decisions and he’s a tough matchup for guys. He can do it all, pretty much, and that’s a big thing for us. He’s going to make a lot of plays for us.

“I think he’s going to be a tough matchup for a while in this league, and I think tonight showed a little glimpse of that.”

The action was ragged for much of the first half. Both teams struggled to find a rhythm, missing shots long and short, bricking free throws, throwing away passes and generally looking like teams very much trying to get their legs under them in the early season.

“I figured coming into this game that the first couple minutes were probably going to be a little ugly,” said Cahill, who’s playing as a graduate student this season after walking on to the team as a senior last season. “You’ve got a lot of young guys, they’re getting really excited to come out here for the first time in front of their peers, fans and all that. … I think we did a good job calming down.”

“I was pretty excited before the game, a little nervous maybe,” Heckmann admitted. “But I just had to go out there and see how it feels, see how you can manage it. It was a good feeling. It was fun out there. We competed really hard.”

Heckmann said he thought the Eagles gained confidence from a run they made late in the first half, cutting into an early UNH lead and taking a lead of their own at the break. They led by five after Heckmann made a running, one-handed, double-clutched 3-pointer from just inside of half court at the buzzer.

That run carried over into the second half, as the Eagles seemed to hit their stride, building a 10-point lead on a Ryan Anderson 3 and two layups by 7-footer Dennis Clifford.

And when UNH started to chip away, there was the mop-headed Heckmann. He drilled a stop-and-pop jumper from the top of the key, got fouled on the play and nailed the and-1. He then swished a pair of free throws after being fouled on a hard drive to the basket.

Then, he went down. Heckmann rolled an ankle trying to make a move to his left and briefly went to the locker room. During the roughly four minutes he was out, UNH ripped off an 8-0 run to climb back into the game.

“We knew that we were going to have ups and downs and I think we did a good job staying in there,” Heckmann said.

When Heckmann got back in there, he found the ball in his hands a lot.

“Patrick obviously was a guy we felt we could go to tonight,” second-year Eagles coach Steve Donahue said. “It could have been a 25-point night for him. He did all the hard work and he just didn’t finish it [on some plays].”

Heckmann was 6-for-16 (including 1-for-4 from beyond the arc and 6-for-7 from the line) for 19 points and 8 rebounds. He often found the ball in his hands with the shot clock running down, and usually made the most of it.

With the score 58-57 BC and 4:38 to go, Heckmann drove hard to the basket. His layup attempt was contested and missed, but he grabbed his own miss and forced it up again. Again he missed, and again he grabbed the rebound. This time he went up on the left side of the rim and was able to lay it in to give the Eagles a little breathing room.

After the teams traded baskets, Heckmann showed another aspect of his game when he stepped in front of UNH captain Alvin Abreu to take a charge.

“He’s also a kid [who] gets better as the game goes on,” Donahue said. “He enjoys the competitiveness of it. At practice you don’t see it as much. l felt it tonight, that he wanted the ball. He wanted to be the guy.”

He was the guy on Monday night. But after praising his young player -- who at times ran the point, posted up on the block and guarded the opposing power forward -- Donahue tried to temper the enthusiasm a bit.

“He’s going to have some hard games,” the coach said. “There’s so much competition at this level, to think that a freshman’s going to come in here and play well every night it’s just not going to happen.”

It wasn’t pretty at times Monday night, and the effort that got BC a win against a middle-of-the-road America East team like UNH won’t get the same result against the cream of the ACC crop. But the Eagles will take it.

A new era has begun. And only time will tell what will come of it.

“We’ve got a lot of young guys,” Cahill said, “but we have a lot of talent, we have a lot of playmakers.”