Second Season Gets Underway On Tuesday

Tuesday, November 5

Chestnut Hill, Mass.

7 P.M.

Boston College

University of Massachusetts Lowell

Coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee in a timeout vs. Providence (2018-19)

Photo by: John Quackenbos

November 03, 2019 | Women's Basketball, #ForBoston Files

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The entire rotation is back as BC looks to manage pressure and expectations.

By: Dan Rubin, BCEagles.com contributor

A new coaching regime always feels abbreviated in its first season. A fresh head coach has to hire staff and establish a foundation, and there's a getting-to-know-you phase of learning player tendencies. The acclimation brings everything to a basic level, limiting the number of complexities and nuances introduced to the system.

The rush of the first season often provokes a completely different outlook when it immediately ends and shifts to Year Two. It prompts a seriousness and maturity because it's an athletic calendar full of offseason training and recruiting. There's less surprises, so it delivers a demeanor and vibe that are ready to spark and ignite a new outlook for a new era.

"After a full season, you know how to push your players' buttons, though that goes both ways," Boston College head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee said with a laugh. "You really understand your players. You understand them as people. We were able to work on things this summer that we couldn't really get to (last season). It was only this year that we started going over things like reading types of screens or getting to coverages on a scramble defensively. We never got to work on those last year, even at the end, but this year, the system was (already) there."

The Boston College coaching staff is now in its second season, and that means the team has that new outlook. Last year, the first year Eagles were an incredibly young team that dominated the season's first two months. They went 8-1 through Thanksgiving and into December, then won consecutive ACC games.

But after starting 13-4 with a 2-2 conference record, the team hit a wall with an elevated degree of difficulty. It beat Duke at the end of January but failed to win a game over the last month and finished the season with a 14-16 overall record. It sent BC a message of early success, but the optimism and excitement needed to become more serious in order to avoid the same brand of late-season disappointment.

"Everyone is a year older, wiser and better, but it goes beyond just the players," Bernabei-McNamee said. "The game last year was more fun because there was a false confidence that was stripped in ACC play. They know what's coming now, where last year, nobody had any idea (before the season). It's creating a different environment, even after practices. We're seeing players wanting to watch more film to see different things, which is a good thing for this team's long run. They're going to be more prepared for ACC play, even though we know we still have to go one game at a time."

It's a new season, but it will, in many ways, remain a continuation of last season. The team returns every major piece from its rotation. Rising seniors Emma Guy, Georgia Pineau and Taylor Ortlepp are all back, and behind them, the bumper crop of freshmen and sophomores are all one year older. That means players like Makayla Dickens, Taylor Soule, Marnelle Garraud, Milan Bolden-Morris and Sydney Lowery are all a little bit more developed, and the addition of players like Cameron Swartz and Jaelyn Batts will create competition for minutes.

"This year, the system is there, so the older players can teach the younger players," Bernabei-McNamee said. "Everything was more productive this summer, and now we're in the thick of the season (before the first game). Everyone is more prepared on both sides of the ball. It's more than we ever were last season, and the IQ has just gotten better."

It creates a general feeling for elevated expectations. BC won early season games last year, and the first ACC games enabled a house money feel for the last month. That evaporated this year as the team started pushing its proverbial chips into the table. There's an undeniable pressure to take the next step, and the message for this year is all about balancing it over an entire winter season.

"I get disappointed a lot more because my expectations are higher for the team," Bernabei-McNamee said. "That's typical for a coach in the second year, you tend to be more disappointed in general. The first year doesn't carry any expectations; I just want came in and wanted us to work hard and said we would see how the cookie crumbled. Now this team has more of a signature from this coaching staff, so expectations become higher."

That said, the coaches are also quick to point out that the expectations and pressure can't translate into something overbearing.

"Pressure is both a positive and a negative," she said. "There's a sense of urgency, but everyone also wants everything to go perfect. That's spilling over to the younger players. We looked tight at times during the preseason, and we didn't see that last year. It made us underperform because we looked scared. I'm working through that. We want to be tight with our handle and loose with our mind, and that's tough."

It all begins this week when BC hosts UMass-Lowell in its season opener at Conte Forum on Tuesday. After that, a five-day turnaround to Sunday brings St. Francis College of Brooklyn on Sunday before games at Holy Cross and Providence.

"Early in the year is early for everyone," Bernabei-McNamee said. "I hope that because this is the second year for us that we have everyone that we're a little bit more prepared than our non-conference opponents."

Tuesday's game between the Eagles and River Hawks will tip off at 7 p.m. from Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill. The game can be seen on the ACC Network Extra online with streaming audio available through mobile devices on the TuneIn app.