Boston College Athletics
Photo by: Andy Mead
The Season That Shattered The Glass Ceiling
March 20, 2020 | Women's Basketball, #ForBoston Files
The story of the journey will always win over the way it all ended.
Boston College women's basketball intended to enjoy one its finest hour in March. The team's players and coaches intended to get together as one unit with a repurposed attitude. The ACC semifinalists intended to watch the NCAA Selection Show. They expected to hear the Eagles called, and they relished the opportunity to fit into a glass slipper as one of March's surprise tournament teams.
BC never received the opportunity; the NCAA canceled its championship season as part of the nation's response to the coronavirus outbreak. The sudden, shocking end to the year is an unavoidable conversation because it etched everyone's record books while asking about what could have been. It does nothing, though, to diminish the accomplishments of a
resurgent program and the team paving the road for future success.
"Our players, to my delight, rose to the occasion every night we played," head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee said. "They didn't do it with false confidence. They had confidence in each other, and they had real chemistry. Even when we traveled, we looked forward to road trips because it was just more time to spend together. Everything was so enjoyable because we didn't have a bad apple in the bunch on the team. It was always about the team before self, and we held ourselves accountable, not just for ourselves but for the whole team."
It transformed Boston College into the media's potential tournament darling after starting the season with increasingly low expectations. Both the ACC coaches and a blue ribbon panel seeded the Eagles 13th in the conference's preseason poll, below the bulk of the league and well out of reach of any perceived postseason shot. It fell in line with the team's win-loss record from 2018-19, but it failed to take into consideration the behind-the-scenes regrouping from the offseason.
"Everyone became better players in the offseason," McNamee said. "They just kept honing their craft while maintaining their statuses as great students. That's really difficult to do at a high academic school. Our staff, meanwhile, worked so hard to prepare scouts for them, and it became a total team effort. Everyone really worked towards the same goal, without egos, and (the progress) showed how much can be accomplished."
It did not necessarily translate right away, though. BC won its first two games but suffered two tough losses against Holy Cross and Providence College. Consecutive wins against Rhode Island and VCU lifted the team back over .500, but a Thanksgiving weekend trip to Puerto Rico resulted in a split against Charlotte and Tulane before the Eagles dropped games to both Northwestern and Duke.
The fall semester ended with wins over Boston University and Delaware State, but nobody predicted the Eagles surge through the second half, especially against the bulk of the ACC. All of that changed when BC traveled to Notre Dame in early January for a game at Purcell Pavilion.
"Notre Dame wasn't as strong this year as they have been, but they're still Notre Dame," senior Emma Guy said. "Playing out there is still a little intimidating, and it was our second (conference) game of the year on the road. But something just clicked for us during that game that we could (win those kinds of games)."
"That's a really tough place to play," McNamee said, "and we played without any doubt. (The atmosphere) didn't even faze anyone, and that's when you could see the belief factor develop. Every line of thinking about Boston College (struggling) crumbled and collapsed, and we became Boston College women's basketball."
The Eagles battled Notre Dame through the first two quarters before rumbling through the third. They finished with a 75-65 victory, the first-ever program win in South Bend, and set the tone for the rest of the season. BC kept pushing forward and began exploding in its collective improvement. A key win over Georgia Tech rocketed the team into the ACC's upper echelon, and another victory on the road at nationally-ranked Florida State put them on the national tournament's outer radar.
"They just kept growing after each and every game," McNamee said. "Even after losses, we would meet and the conversation centered on making sure losing didn't define us. We centered on learning and how to grow, and we tried to take things away from the losses to ensure we could be better at the next game. After wins, we wanted to make sure we did the same thing. We didn't want to gloat about anything more so than just keep learning what we could."
The Eagles won nine of its last 12 games after that win over Georgia Tech and finished tied for fourth place in the conference at the year's end, setting a record for conference wins along the way. They entered the ACC Tournament seeded sixth, resembling nothing of the team people thought would finish the year in 13th, with an outside shot at the NCAA Tournament. The more likely scenario played out for the WNIT unless BC could fit itself with a glass slipper in a place where winning was a birthright for other, more storied schools.
"We felt like people looked at BC and thought we still weren't a good team or that we couldn't be a good team," Guy said. "A big turning point of that came a few games later. We went into Florida State and won that game on the road. They were a really good team, so winning made teams respect us more. People started taking us more seriously, but there was a feeling that we went into every game still thinking we had that underdog mentality."
"I felt the fire was obvious at the end of close games," McNamee said. "We knew how to win in those (close) situations. A good example was Georgia Tech because we had a good lead, but they took a good amount of it away from us to make it close at the end. If it had been a two or three-point game, (the Yellow Jackets) would have won, so we had an intent to become better in those situations."
It happened almost immediately when Clemson upset Miami and refused to go quietly against BC. The Eagles led by 10 at halftime, but the Tigers staged a furious third quarter rally to pull within four before BC pulled away with an eight-point, fourth quarter advantage.
"I could hear the seniors in the locker room before I walked in," McNamee said. "They were saying how this was the first time they came to Greensboro and got a win. It just knocked down another peg standing in the way of Boston College basketball."
It happened again the next night against Duke on short rest. The tired Eagles fell behind by seven in the fourth quarter but dug in for one of the ACC's great comebacks. They bottled Haley Gorecki, who was one of the nation's greatest players, and finished the game with a 14-0 run. It catapulted BC into the national picture, putting them inside the bubble with a 20-11 record after losing to NC State in the semifinals.
"By the time we played Duke, we were two totally different teams," McNamee said. "We played them so early in the year, and I knew we were going to be a much better team than what they saw (in the first game). The end was unbelievable, and I credit back to learning how to play to win. We played scared in that older Georgia Tech game, like we just wanted to 'not lose.' They had a different chemistry going (against Duke) where they believed they could (win). There was no doubt in anyone's mind."
"I know, in the past, we would have given up against Duke," Guy said. "We managed to come back and go on a 14-0 run. That showed the fight and growth we had."
The Eagles started the year as the No. 13 team in the ACC but finished the season squarely in the bubble discussion for the NCAA Tournament. The conference tournament ended a week before Selection Monday, so the team spent the last week watching scores unfold from around the nation. Gonzaga's upset loss to Portland in the West Coast Conference hurt the team's chances, but the players and coaches understood the remainder of the tournament would likely break results into BC's favor before the shocking stoppage ended everything.
"We would've been a tournament team," Guy said. "Everyone had to play championship games, and there was only one upset where Gonzaga lost. In the end, everyone knows we could have been this year's Cinderella team. I really believe we were ready to make a run, and people would have really wanted to see that."
"We had 20 wins with a good chunk of those wins coming at the end of the year in the ACC," McNamee agreed. "I thought it would have been really hard for us to be left out of the tournament."
The unfortunate ending means nobody will ever know the true outcome, but it does nothing to diminish this team's accomplishments. The ending can't undo how the unlikeliest team in BC's stable organically captivated its audience, and it can't erase how the entire community spiked interest in a dormant program's resurgence. The season's end will always be notable and part of a greater world history, but BC's place in that larger story can't blemish the previous months of how it played out.
"I love that I have those memories," Guy said. "I can say that I was part of a team that swept Notre Dame and rallied past Duke. We are always going to be ACC Tournament semifinalists. I'll always talk about those games. We will always have our legacy of growth. I was able to build that with Georgia and Taylor. If we fought on the court, it was over by the time we reached the locker room, and we were family by the time we reached the dinner table. No matter what, we stuck together. Everyone can now build on that and grow it because there's potential to become great. We can be a program at the top of the ACC."
"Your players graduate but your culture never does," McNamee said. "They started their legacy by building this culture and forming a winning tradition. Now it's up to the returners and the incoming kids to continue that culture while building that legacy."
BC never received the opportunity; the NCAA canceled its championship season as part of the nation's response to the coronavirus outbreak. The sudden, shocking end to the year is an unavoidable conversation because it etched everyone's record books while asking about what could have been. It does nothing, though, to diminish the accomplishments of a
resurgent program and the team paving the road for future success.
"Our players, to my delight, rose to the occasion every night we played," head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee said. "They didn't do it with false confidence. They had confidence in each other, and they had real chemistry. Even when we traveled, we looked forward to road trips because it was just more time to spend together. Everything was so enjoyable because we didn't have a bad apple in the bunch on the team. It was always about the team before self, and we held ourselves accountable, not just for ourselves but for the whole team."
It transformed Boston College into the media's potential tournament darling after starting the season with increasingly low expectations. Both the ACC coaches and a blue ribbon panel seeded the Eagles 13th in the conference's preseason poll, below the bulk of the league and well out of reach of any perceived postseason shot. It fell in line with the team's win-loss record from 2018-19, but it failed to take into consideration the behind-the-scenes regrouping from the offseason.
"Everyone became better players in the offseason," McNamee said. "They just kept honing their craft while maintaining their statuses as great students. That's really difficult to do at a high academic school. Our staff, meanwhile, worked so hard to prepare scouts for them, and it became a total team effort. Everyone really worked towards the same goal, without egos, and (the progress) showed how much can be accomplished."
It did not necessarily translate right away, though. BC won its first two games but suffered two tough losses against Holy Cross and Providence College. Consecutive wins against Rhode Island and VCU lifted the team back over .500, but a Thanksgiving weekend trip to Puerto Rico resulted in a split against Charlotte and Tulane before the Eagles dropped games to both Northwestern and Duke.
The fall semester ended with wins over Boston University and Delaware State, but nobody predicted the Eagles surge through the second half, especially against the bulk of the ACC. All of that changed when BC traveled to Notre Dame in early January for a game at Purcell Pavilion.
"Notre Dame wasn't as strong this year as they have been, but they're still Notre Dame," senior Emma Guy said. "Playing out there is still a little intimidating, and it was our second (conference) game of the year on the road. But something just clicked for us during that game that we could (win those kinds of games)."
"That's a really tough place to play," McNamee said, "and we played without any doubt. (The atmosphere) didn't even faze anyone, and that's when you could see the belief factor develop. Every line of thinking about Boston College (struggling) crumbled and collapsed, and we became Boston College women's basketball."
The Eagles battled Notre Dame through the first two quarters before rumbling through the third. They finished with a 75-65 victory, the first-ever program win in South Bend, and set the tone for the rest of the season. BC kept pushing forward and began exploding in its collective improvement. A key win over Georgia Tech rocketed the team into the ACC's upper echelon, and another victory on the road at nationally-ranked Florida State put them on the national tournament's outer radar.
"They just kept growing after each and every game," McNamee said. "Even after losses, we would meet and the conversation centered on making sure losing didn't define us. We centered on learning and how to grow, and we tried to take things away from the losses to ensure we could be better at the next game. After wins, we wanted to make sure we did the same thing. We didn't want to gloat about anything more so than just keep learning what we could."
The Eagles won nine of its last 12 games after that win over Georgia Tech and finished tied for fourth place in the conference at the year's end, setting a record for conference wins along the way. They entered the ACC Tournament seeded sixth, resembling nothing of the team people thought would finish the year in 13th, with an outside shot at the NCAA Tournament. The more likely scenario played out for the WNIT unless BC could fit itself with a glass slipper in a place where winning was a birthright for other, more storied schools.
"We felt like people looked at BC and thought we still weren't a good team or that we couldn't be a good team," Guy said. "A big turning point of that came a few games later. We went into Florida State and won that game on the road. They were a really good team, so winning made teams respect us more. People started taking us more seriously, but there was a feeling that we went into every game still thinking we had that underdog mentality."
"I felt the fire was obvious at the end of close games," McNamee said. "We knew how to win in those (close) situations. A good example was Georgia Tech because we had a good lead, but they took a good amount of it away from us to make it close at the end. If it had been a two or three-point game, (the Yellow Jackets) would have won, so we had an intent to become better in those situations."
It happened almost immediately when Clemson upset Miami and refused to go quietly against BC. The Eagles led by 10 at halftime, but the Tigers staged a furious third quarter rally to pull within four before BC pulled away with an eight-point, fourth quarter advantage.
"I could hear the seniors in the locker room before I walked in," McNamee said. "They were saying how this was the first time they came to Greensboro and got a win. It just knocked down another peg standing in the way of Boston College basketball."
It happened again the next night against Duke on short rest. The tired Eagles fell behind by seven in the fourth quarter but dug in for one of the ACC's great comebacks. They bottled Haley Gorecki, who was one of the nation's greatest players, and finished the game with a 14-0 run. It catapulted BC into the national picture, putting them inside the bubble with a 20-11 record after losing to NC State in the semifinals.
"By the time we played Duke, we were two totally different teams," McNamee said. "We played them so early in the year, and I knew we were going to be a much better team than what they saw (in the first game). The end was unbelievable, and I credit back to learning how to play to win. We played scared in that older Georgia Tech game, like we just wanted to 'not lose.' They had a different chemistry going (against Duke) where they believed they could (win). There was no doubt in anyone's mind."
"I know, in the past, we would have given up against Duke," Guy said. "We managed to come back and go on a 14-0 run. That showed the fight and growth we had."
The Eagles started the year as the No. 13 team in the ACC but finished the season squarely in the bubble discussion for the NCAA Tournament. The conference tournament ended a week before Selection Monday, so the team spent the last week watching scores unfold from around the nation. Gonzaga's upset loss to Portland in the West Coast Conference hurt the team's chances, but the players and coaches understood the remainder of the tournament would likely break results into BC's favor before the shocking stoppage ended everything.
"We would've been a tournament team," Guy said. "Everyone had to play championship games, and there was only one upset where Gonzaga lost. In the end, everyone knows we could have been this year's Cinderella team. I really believe we were ready to make a run, and people would have really wanted to see that."
"We had 20 wins with a good chunk of those wins coming at the end of the year in the ACC," McNamee agreed. "I thought it would have been really hard for us to be left out of the tournament."
The unfortunate ending means nobody will ever know the true outcome, but it does nothing to diminish this team's accomplishments. The ending can't undo how the unlikeliest team in BC's stable organically captivated its audience, and it can't erase how the entire community spiked interest in a dormant program's resurgence. The season's end will always be notable and part of a greater world history, but BC's place in that larger story can't blemish the previous months of how it played out.
"I love that I have those memories," Guy said. "I can say that I was part of a team that swept Notre Dame and rallied past Duke. We are always going to be ACC Tournament semifinalists. I'll always talk about those games. We will always have our legacy of growth. I was able to build that with Georgia and Taylor. If we fought on the court, it was over by the time we reached the locker room, and we were family by the time we reached the dinner table. No matter what, we stuck together. Everyone can now build on that and grow it because there's potential to become great. We can be a program at the top of the ACC."
"Your players graduate but your culture never does," McNamee said. "They started their legacy by building this culture and forming a winning tradition. Now it's up to the returners and the incoming kids to continue that culture while building that legacy."
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