Ready To Put Last Year Behind, Women's Basketball Returns
November 07, 2021 | Women's Basketball, #ForBoston Files
The Eagles open up their season on Tuesday against Harvard.
Marnelle Garraud's Thanksgiving weekend last year wasn't like anyone else she knew. The rest of the world was trying to figure out how to manage having turkey dinner during a pandemic, but the Lynn, Massachusetts native was on the court on the Wednesday before the holiday, warming up for her first game of the 2020-2021 season against New Hampshire.
Games before Thanksgiving typically aren't the best attended when people are trying to either hit the road or catch a flight, but an eerie feeling swept through Conte Forum as she warmed up. Nobody was in the stands, the benches were spread out, and the sound system in the arena was testing sound levels for artificial crowd noise that would, to an extent, supplant the lack of people supporting her Boston College Eagles.
"Because there was nobody there, it was dead silent," Garraud said. "They had crowd noise and were testing the levels, but that was weird to me. I don't remember if we actually used it, but I remember thinking there was no way it was going to work because it was such a weird concept to me."
The surreality of the moment lasted throughout the entire season, and after a 19-game, abbreviated season impacted by COVID-19, the Eagles finished 7-12. It was a far cry from their preseason expectations after competing for the NCAA Tournament the year before, but the hardships endured strengthened their resolve to make the 2021-2022 season's return to normal something that they won't ever forget.
"I think last year was an absolute debacle, just emotionally and physically," head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee said. "We were never really able to put a full team on the court [and] didn't have a summer workout. Not making excuses, but I don't think last year was an indicative year of who we were this year with having a whole summer to prepare. Moving forward, [this team] isn't taking any day for granted or any time that we have together."
It's an easy viewpoint to judge BC's season last year as a step backwards, but the context surrounding the Eagles clouds the difficulties they faced over the shortened season. They split their first eight games by winning their four non-conference games, but after beating Notre Dame on January 7 to improve to 5-4, a bad loss to Wake Forest foreshadowed the stormy seas of the season. They lost to Louisville and dropped their return match to the Fighting Irish on the road, neither of which can be faulted by any team, before enduring a pause induced by COVID-19.
BC played one game over the next month - against Louisville, no less - but finally hit a stride at the end of the season with an unexpected win over Georgia Tech. The Eagles then upended Pitt in the first round of the ACC Tournament before a six-point loss to Syracuse ended the arduous campaign. It was an upswing after the way they started and dipped in the midseason, but it was the end of a season that played on their emotions and tried the entire roster's mental health as much as its physical well-being.
"I'm not very loud as it is," Bernabei-McNamee said, "and I really have to yell [for the team] to hear me. And [last year] we were masked up, so I don't know if they ever heard a word I said, and so I'd pull it down but I hated that look because then what's the point of masking. Then our bench was spread out, and one of the things that's noticeable about coming to our games is that they will go nuts. You can really enjoy watching our bench have each other's back and enjoy themselves as much as the team on the floor, and we weren't able to do any of that last year. There wasn't that camaraderie that they [bring]."
It made starting the process for 2021-2022 very easy, and BC reentered the lab this summer with its first training sessions in two years after lifting the restrictions from last season. The Eagles had missed their critical practices and team bonding from the summer before the 2020-2021 season after protocols necessitated social distancing and separation, and they welcomed their freshman class and, to a lesser degree, their sophomores into a normal offseason training regimen.
"Last year really showed us how important it is [over the summer]," said senior Cameron Swartz. "When you have a team that's an older team, which we do with five seniors, you bring in new players, and it's that summer that's most important to teach players the system and to build chemistry. It's about all of the advantages that teams can have to be better and not just coming into the preseason as your 'summer.'"
This year's team especially used the months to both firm up its roster while transitioning some of its knowledge from the older generation to the newcomers. The entire starting lineup is back, including Taylor Soule, a two-time Cheryl Miller Award Watch List nominee and a First Team All-ACC selection. She finished seventh in the ACC in scoring last season and averaged over 15 points per game while falling one point shy of a 300-point season. She also led BC with seven rebounds per game, a stat that seeded her 12th in the conference.
She's a unique front court presence, especially when paired with Swartz, who finished second on the team in scoring and tied for third in rebounding with just over 13 points and just under five boards per game, while Clara Ford stepped into the starting role in the post to average 5.6 rebounds. Both Soule and Ford were the only players to total 100 rebounds on the season.
Any up-front success, though, will likely run through the team's added depth after Ally VanTimmeren matriculated to college during her senior season in high school. She took advantage of the NCAA's free year of eligibility to enroll in the mid-year with the Eagles, and the decision to skip her senior year in high school enabled her to finish first on the team in blocks before her high school graduation date. She saw action in 10 games with her first game coming against NC State, and she twice grabbed seven rebounds during the final stretch run of the season.
"Our offensive balance is really going to rely on Maria Gakdeng and Ally VanTimmeren to step up on the inside," Bernabei-McNamee said, "and Clara Ford needs to enhance her role from what she was able to do last year. When you talk about two freshmen doing that, you still have a little bit of an imbalance because they have a lot of things to grow and learn. But that's why we play non-conference basketball. I'm hoping they'll all get their mistakes out of their system in the non-conference."
The backcourt pairing of Garraud and Makayla Dickens, meanwhile, remains one of the best in the nation and has one more shot to backstop the Eagles into the national tournament. They averaged a combined 20 points last season while posting over 100 assists and 50 steals while becoming the top three-point percentage shooters on the roster.
"I feel like we're the parents for the little kids that are running around," Dickens joked. "We were once those little kids that were running around, and we're much older. It's not even if there's a problem, but they'll do something, and we can't even be mad because we used to do those same things. That dynamic is really fun to look at [as part of this year's team]."
BC opens its 2021-2022 season on Tuesday afternoon at Conte Forum with a 4:30 p.m. tip-off against Harvard. The game can be seen on the ACC Network Extra via ESPN online and the streaming family of mobile apps for cable subscribers with access to the network.
Games before Thanksgiving typically aren't the best attended when people are trying to either hit the road or catch a flight, but an eerie feeling swept through Conte Forum as she warmed up. Nobody was in the stands, the benches were spread out, and the sound system in the arena was testing sound levels for artificial crowd noise that would, to an extent, supplant the lack of people supporting her Boston College Eagles.
"Because there was nobody there, it was dead silent," Garraud said. "They had crowd noise and were testing the levels, but that was weird to me. I don't remember if we actually used it, but I remember thinking there was no way it was going to work because it was such a weird concept to me."
The surreality of the moment lasted throughout the entire season, and after a 19-game, abbreviated season impacted by COVID-19, the Eagles finished 7-12. It was a far cry from their preseason expectations after competing for the NCAA Tournament the year before, but the hardships endured strengthened their resolve to make the 2021-2022 season's return to normal something that they won't ever forget.
"I think last year was an absolute debacle, just emotionally and physically," head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee said. "We were never really able to put a full team on the court [and] didn't have a summer workout. Not making excuses, but I don't think last year was an indicative year of who we were this year with having a whole summer to prepare. Moving forward, [this team] isn't taking any day for granted or any time that we have together."
It's an easy viewpoint to judge BC's season last year as a step backwards, but the context surrounding the Eagles clouds the difficulties they faced over the shortened season. They split their first eight games by winning their four non-conference games, but after beating Notre Dame on January 7 to improve to 5-4, a bad loss to Wake Forest foreshadowed the stormy seas of the season. They lost to Louisville and dropped their return match to the Fighting Irish on the road, neither of which can be faulted by any team, before enduring a pause induced by COVID-19.
BC played one game over the next month - against Louisville, no less - but finally hit a stride at the end of the season with an unexpected win over Georgia Tech. The Eagles then upended Pitt in the first round of the ACC Tournament before a six-point loss to Syracuse ended the arduous campaign. It was an upswing after the way they started and dipped in the midseason, but it was the end of a season that played on their emotions and tried the entire roster's mental health as much as its physical well-being.
"I'm not very loud as it is," Bernabei-McNamee said, "and I really have to yell [for the team] to hear me. And [last year] we were masked up, so I don't know if they ever heard a word I said, and so I'd pull it down but I hated that look because then what's the point of masking. Then our bench was spread out, and one of the things that's noticeable about coming to our games is that they will go nuts. You can really enjoy watching our bench have each other's back and enjoy themselves as much as the team on the floor, and we weren't able to do any of that last year. There wasn't that camaraderie that they [bring]."
It made starting the process for 2021-2022 very easy, and BC reentered the lab this summer with its first training sessions in two years after lifting the restrictions from last season. The Eagles had missed their critical practices and team bonding from the summer before the 2020-2021 season after protocols necessitated social distancing and separation, and they welcomed their freshman class and, to a lesser degree, their sophomores into a normal offseason training regimen.
"Last year really showed us how important it is [over the summer]," said senior Cameron Swartz. "When you have a team that's an older team, which we do with five seniors, you bring in new players, and it's that summer that's most important to teach players the system and to build chemistry. It's about all of the advantages that teams can have to be better and not just coming into the preseason as your 'summer.'"
This year's team especially used the months to both firm up its roster while transitioning some of its knowledge from the older generation to the newcomers. The entire starting lineup is back, including Taylor Soule, a two-time Cheryl Miller Award Watch List nominee and a First Team All-ACC selection. She finished seventh in the ACC in scoring last season and averaged over 15 points per game while falling one point shy of a 300-point season. She also led BC with seven rebounds per game, a stat that seeded her 12th in the conference.
She's a unique front court presence, especially when paired with Swartz, who finished second on the team in scoring and tied for third in rebounding with just over 13 points and just under five boards per game, while Clara Ford stepped into the starting role in the post to average 5.6 rebounds. Both Soule and Ford were the only players to total 100 rebounds on the season.
Any up-front success, though, will likely run through the team's added depth after Ally VanTimmeren matriculated to college during her senior season in high school. She took advantage of the NCAA's free year of eligibility to enroll in the mid-year with the Eagles, and the decision to skip her senior year in high school enabled her to finish first on the team in blocks before her high school graduation date. She saw action in 10 games with her first game coming against NC State, and she twice grabbed seven rebounds during the final stretch run of the season.
"Our offensive balance is really going to rely on Maria Gakdeng and Ally VanTimmeren to step up on the inside," Bernabei-McNamee said, "and Clara Ford needs to enhance her role from what she was able to do last year. When you talk about two freshmen doing that, you still have a little bit of an imbalance because they have a lot of things to grow and learn. But that's why we play non-conference basketball. I'm hoping they'll all get their mistakes out of their system in the non-conference."
The backcourt pairing of Garraud and Makayla Dickens, meanwhile, remains one of the best in the nation and has one more shot to backstop the Eagles into the national tournament. They averaged a combined 20 points last season while posting over 100 assists and 50 steals while becoming the top three-point percentage shooters on the roster.
"I feel like we're the parents for the little kids that are running around," Dickens joked. "We were once those little kids that were running around, and we're much older. It's not even if there's a problem, but they'll do something, and we can't even be mad because we used to do those same things. That dynamic is really fun to look at [as part of this year's team]."
BC opens its 2021-2022 season on Tuesday afternoon at Conte Forum with a 4:30 p.m. tip-off against Harvard. The game can be seen on the ACC Network Extra via ESPN online and the streaming family of mobile apps for cable subscribers with access to the network.
Players Mentioned
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