Construction Continues Into Long, Grueling Week

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is widely regarded as the worst travel day of the year. Gridlock traffic snarls in every direction as people make their way home for the holiday weekend, and every hub - highways, airports, train stations - are jammed with a mass of humanity hurriedly sprinting to criss-cross the country for holiday destinations. It's the messiest day of the year, and the afternoon rush hour drive can turn a regular commute into the hours-long grind that leads to angry tweets and social media posts.

In other words, it's the perfect time for Boston College women's basketball to leave Conte Forum in the postgame aftermath of a non-conference game against Holy Cross before boarding a flight for the Puerto Rico Clasico at the end of the week.

"It's going to be hectic," said head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee. "When we made this schedule, we thought flights were going to work out a little bit differently, and having a game on Wednesday before flying out to Puerto Rico could be a little dicey. But it would be great to start out the week and go right into Puerto Rico with some confidence, and I'm hoping that we continue to build our bench to where we're able to play an even bigger rotation [this week]."

Playing Wednesday afternoon at noon is the perfect time for area families to relax before the afternoon rush, but it's not exactly a vacation for an Eagles team that's continuing to build its identity. It's an important matchup, and Holy Cross is a team that's given BC fits over the past decade's worth of basketball.

Two of the Crusaders' 10 all-time wins over the Eagles came in 2014 and 2019 and specifically were part of mid-November matchups, and though BC hasn't lost at home to Holy Cross since 1997, 2019's nine-point loss on the road still echoes through a program that fought at the time to establish its own identity prior to ACC play.

It's a stark contrast from last season's 25-point win for a team that long established its identity and cohesion with a deep, entrenched roster, and Sunday's win over Providence proved that managing the up-and-down in-game nature of a team is almost as imperative as hitting steady improvement trajectories in practice and film sessions.

"We showed the team film from last year so there wouldn't be any surprises when [Providence guard] Janai Crooms did her thing," Bernabei-McNamee said. "We knew she wasn't going to be a player that was going to jack up three-point shots and that she was going to get to her sweet spot. Now it's just a matter, and we talked about this after the game, of digging into [the film] a little bit deeper with our defensive one-on-one sets."

Crooms led all scorers both in scoring and shooting with her 25 points on 10-of-16 shooting, and her six rebounds and four assists illustrated how the Friar offense rotated entirely through the Ohio State transfer and Ocean State native. BC keyed off of her and built its 73-64 win by playing its system, but it looked different enough from last year's matchup because of the switch in personnel.

The storyline was common for the early part of BC's season, largely because the Eagles are, quite literally, a completely different team. The most common phrase used to describe BC to start this year reflects how last year's senior class included a number of different starters that left Chestnut Hill for their fifth year of eligibility, but the excitement of starting over with highly-touted and ultra-talented young players carried the question marks associated with the literal unknowns and overall growing pains.

The loss to Harvard was the perfect example of a team that didn't yet know how to play on the road, and the loss to Ohio State featured a team that needed to adapt to a big-time, nationally-ranked opponent for the first time in its current form. Northeastern allowed the Eagles to breathe a bit, but the more complete win over the Friars included reduced turnovers and increased assists against an opponent that knew how to drive the defense and pressure for foul shots.

Sophomore Andrea Daley stepped into the starting lineup for the first time in her career, and her 30 minutes bookended extended days on the court for both Taina Mair and T'Yana Todd. Mair, who already is a national leader in assists, played a season-high 39 minutes and scored 13 points, while Todd matched her with a second half breakout that included nine points in the third and fourth quarter and an overall 8-for-8 from the free throw line. Maria Gakdeng finally reached the all-important double-double mark with 10 points, 11 rebounds and three blocks, and the entire available roster scored at least six points each while playing a minimum of 10 minutes.

"We really had to be honed in on change of directions and quick bursts of speed," Bernabei-McNamee said. "In our game, it's so much different from men's basketball. They're allowed to ride people into [the paint] and put a hand down or give a little hip check, and they can set themselves with their hands. We can't touch anybody, so that ability to keep somebody in front of you is all about your legs, and that's a skill set.

"We have to work on that," she said, "but it goes the other way. I want our players to gather that we can take a little page from that book and understand that people can't touch us either, so we can get more confident when we make one-on-one moves. We can take our time with our skill and our size to score when teams are playing us one-on-one."

It's all part of the ongoing construction that's adding new layers to an established culture. The further layers emerging from Dontavia Waggoner and JoJo Lacey are anchoring the links to the older, more recognizable success, but the emergence of new faces are baking new pieces of a team cake that's long been defined by the players. There are still growing pains, even in wins, but every week offers new lessons to an accelerated growth curve that should have the Eagles hitting another gear by the thick of ACC play.

"The culture of this program is pretty set," Bernabei-McNamee said, "and you always tell people that players graduate but culture never dies. It stays within your program, and our culture is getting a little bit better every day. In every game, win or lose, we're going grow and learn from it."

BC and Holy Cross tip off on Wednesday at 12 p.m. with television streaming coverage available through ESPN's ACC Network Extra on web-based and mobile app devices for cable subscribers with access to the channel.

Construction Continues Into Long, Grueling Week

Players Mentioned

Andrea Daley

Maria Gakdeng

JoJo Lacey

Taina Mair

T'yana Todd

Dontavia Waggoner