Boston College Athletics
February 21, 2022 | Women's Basketball, #ForBoston Files
The last Conte Forum game capped a home career for the ages.
The emotion couldn't have rung through Conte Forum any clearer.Â
Time still remained on the clock in Boston College's women's basketball home finale against Wake Forest, but the Eagles' double-digit lead predicted the Demon Deacons' eventual fate. After leading by as many as 22, Wake Forest pressured BC in the third quarter, but a fourth quarter effort to re-extend the lead ended any shot of an upset bid. Everyone in the arena knew it, and after Clara Ford substituted back into the game, they all anticipated the moment that was about to unfold after head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee called her final timeout of the afternoon.
It started as soon as referee Jules Gallien blew his whistle to signal the timeout. The applause, capped by three-plus quarters of basketball action, unloaded on the five BC seniors on the court, and the cheers grew louder as a shift change subbed them out of the game for the final time. Their teammates jumped off the bench, and Wake Forest, respectful in the moment, allowed BC's reserves to hug their leaders one final time under the Conte Forum lights.
After the final 40 seconds ticked off the 82-70 win, that singular moment hung louder and shined brighter than any other shot or defensive stand. It was, in essence, the last time those five players - Ford, Cameron Swartz, Makayla Dickens, and co-captains Marnelle Garraud and Taylor Soule - stood on the floor together as one.
"I think it's the feeling of knowing that we've built something for four years," said Garraud, "but I don't think I've ever been with a team, or anybody in my life, this much for four years. We're with each other 24/7. We're each other's roommates and best friends. To do all of that, yes, we occasionally have an argument or skirmish, but for us to stay as close as we are, I don't know that I've ever had a relationship or friendship like that."
Senior Day is always constructed as an emotional day, but Sunday reinforced the emotional lift and barriers broken by a class that helped turn around a program that finished near or at the bottom of the ACC for the five years prior to its arrival. Four of the five seniors who committed to BC during that time did so thinking they would play for a coach other than Bernabei-McNamee, but they arrived on campus to a program already in transition from the six league wins over the previous three seasons.
The build wasn't immediate, but the first season doubled BC's overall wins total. The league wins didn't fully arrive, but Dickens played more minutes than any other Eagle, and Garraud was one of five players with over 700 minutes on the floor. Soule earned 20 starts, and with four games left in the season, her 21-point breakout against North Carolina flashed the potential of the All-American career that laid ahead.
"Honestly, it was the people," Soule said. "The wins and losses, whenever everyone's time is done playing basketball in general, you're going to look back at the memories of the people who you did the run test with, who you did those early morning workouts with. That's what we'll all miss most. I love all my teammates that I ever had, but this group, I always knew I could lean on them, and they knew they could always lean on me."
Fusing together players from different backgrounds laid a foundation, and the final piece joined the team a year later when Swartz, a Colorado transfer, joined the team as a redshirt sophomore. She eventually started 19 games for that team, but the newcomer who dealt with adversity in Boulder seamlessly fit into the BC rotation as an emerging sharpshooter from outside. She only played seven games for the Buffaloes before transferring, but after scoring 27 points against Tulane, she went on a five-game run of scoring in double digits.Â
She was essentially the missing link to complete the five-person class, and combined with the veteran frontcourt presences of Emma Guy and Georgia Pineau, the Eagles emerged in the second half of the season as a Cinderella story in college basketball. For the first time in program history, a win at Notre Dame preceded the first-ever season sweep over the Fighting Irish, and wins over North Carolina, Miami and Syracuse pushed BC onto the NCAA bubble in time for ACC Tournament wins over Clemson and Duke, the latter of which was a dramatic, seven-point win.
"I don't think [transferring] into any other group would have been doable," Swartz said. "This group accepted me right way. There were definitely ups and downs to coming in late, but it wouldn't have been possible to feel how I felt or how close it would have been with any other teams. I won't forget how they had just come back [to BC] from a game, and it was late. The entire team came by [my dorm] to make me feel welcome. That sisterhood is something."
Unfortunately for BC, the trajectory into the tournament and points north derailed when COVID-19 arrived. The pandemic's initial outburst canceled the 2020 NCAA Tournament and left the Eagles knowing they had done enough to get into a dance to which no music played, and as the months stretched into the next season, they started 2020-2021 with heightened expectations against the most unknown backdrop.
It was, as Bernabei-McNamee said in her preseason press conference this year, a "debacle." COVID-induced pauses and isolation protocols kept BC from ever gaining momentum, and an abbreviated, 19-game season ended with a 2-11 league campaign. A team known for its ebullient nature looked exhausted at the season's end, but as this year started, the bonds that started in those first two years grew stronger in the face of that adversity, instead of breaking apart as could have happened.
And as new players emerged, BC's now-veteran senior class assumed its rightful position as the matriarchs of a new day. They had done it all and experienced everything, and through it all, they simply relied on each other. That culture, the foundation of which they laid four years earlier, was now a piece of what made BC a destination, and throughout this year, a best-kept secret in college basketball emerged as more people found their way to a team that won with smiles and teamwork as much as as a gritty, defensive style that made coaches happy to watch.
"Having our senior night with all of our friends, all of our fans, and everybody thanking us," said Ford, "shows us that we've made a really big impact not only for this team and this program, but also the BC community. Having kids come up to us wanting us to sign their shirts, stuff like that, is really amazing."
All of that factored into the celebration on Sunday afternoon for a team that started from square one with a coach staff dedicated to making them better. They weren't simply happy to be there as much as they went out with a different, business-like attitude…yet they still retained the same happiness and celebratory atmosphere of the past three years. Through it all, they stood together, and in that final timeout, they hugged, knowing the tears of hearing Conte Forum cheers were in their final act, a moment Dickens referred to as "bittersweet."
Yet somehow, through those seconds, a fire lit by their arrivals over the past four years still burned, and with two games remaining on the schedule, there is still something to prove. This senior class has won plenty of basketball games and put BC squarely into the NCAA Tournament picture, but regardless of the situation, a berth in the big dance still hasn't happened.Â
There is still a postseason drought that dates back over a decade. In 2011, BC went to the WNIT and advanced to the Regional Semifinals after beating Yale and St. Joseph's. It was the Eagles' third trip to that particular tournament in four years, but reaching the Sweet Sixteen in each of their berths didn't result in postseason hardware despite three 20-win seasons.
That was the last time BC played in a postseason game, but the NCAA Tournament drought dates back even a few years earlier than that to when Cathy Inglese's golden era Eagles advanced to the Sweet Sixteen in 2006 in their seventh trip to March Madness over an eight-year span. They had turned into a Big East powerhouse that annually ranked in the top-25, and the move to the ACC didn't diminish those expectations after the team won 21 games and finished the year ranked 19th.
No new year has been lifted to the Conte Forum rafters since that year, and it's not lost on this year's team how simply being good enough wasn't enough. They have to win their way into the tournament in order to prove to the world that they have national championship aspirations, and despite the emotion of Sunday's Senior Day, the job's business is still very much unfinished.
"We have to go dancing," Soule said. "It's not a question of if we have to do it with this group. We know what it takes to get there, and it's not going to be easy. Sometimes it's not even in your control. But what we've always talked about is having to control what you can control. Winning [Sunday] and moving onto the next one is how we prepare. That's something we've known since the first day, and what we want to do is to be the group that's this program back to the tournament. We work hard every day, and even though we don't get enough credit nationally or in general, this group deserves that status."
Both of BC's final two games are on the road this week as the Eagles head to both Duke and Syracuse to wrap up the 2021-2022 regular season. It begins on Thursday in Durham with an 8 p.m. start as part of the ACC's Regional Sports Network coverage, locally in Boston on NESN.
Time still remained on the clock in Boston College's women's basketball home finale against Wake Forest, but the Eagles' double-digit lead predicted the Demon Deacons' eventual fate. After leading by as many as 22, Wake Forest pressured BC in the third quarter, but a fourth quarter effort to re-extend the lead ended any shot of an upset bid. Everyone in the arena knew it, and after Clara Ford substituted back into the game, they all anticipated the moment that was about to unfold after head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee called her final timeout of the afternoon.
It started as soon as referee Jules Gallien blew his whistle to signal the timeout. The applause, capped by three-plus quarters of basketball action, unloaded on the five BC seniors on the court, and the cheers grew louder as a shift change subbed them out of the game for the final time. Their teammates jumped off the bench, and Wake Forest, respectful in the moment, allowed BC's reserves to hug their leaders one final time under the Conte Forum lights.
After the final 40 seconds ticked off the 82-70 win, that singular moment hung louder and shined brighter than any other shot or defensive stand. It was, in essence, the last time those five players - Ford, Cameron Swartz, Makayla Dickens, and co-captains Marnelle Garraud and Taylor Soule - stood on the floor together as one.
"I think it's the feeling of knowing that we've built something for four years," said Garraud, "but I don't think I've ever been with a team, or anybody in my life, this much for four years. We're with each other 24/7. We're each other's roommates and best friends. To do all of that, yes, we occasionally have an argument or skirmish, but for us to stay as close as we are, I don't know that I've ever had a relationship or friendship like that."
Senior Day is always constructed as an emotional day, but Sunday reinforced the emotional lift and barriers broken by a class that helped turn around a program that finished near or at the bottom of the ACC for the five years prior to its arrival. Four of the five seniors who committed to BC during that time did so thinking they would play for a coach other than Bernabei-McNamee, but they arrived on campus to a program already in transition from the six league wins over the previous three seasons.
The build wasn't immediate, but the first season doubled BC's overall wins total. The league wins didn't fully arrive, but Dickens played more minutes than any other Eagle, and Garraud was one of five players with over 700 minutes on the floor. Soule earned 20 starts, and with four games left in the season, her 21-point breakout against North Carolina flashed the potential of the All-American career that laid ahead.
"Honestly, it was the people," Soule said. "The wins and losses, whenever everyone's time is done playing basketball in general, you're going to look back at the memories of the people who you did the run test with, who you did those early morning workouts with. That's what we'll all miss most. I love all my teammates that I ever had, but this group, I always knew I could lean on them, and they knew they could always lean on me."
Fusing together players from different backgrounds laid a foundation, and the final piece joined the team a year later when Swartz, a Colorado transfer, joined the team as a redshirt sophomore. She eventually started 19 games for that team, but the newcomer who dealt with adversity in Boulder seamlessly fit into the BC rotation as an emerging sharpshooter from outside. She only played seven games for the Buffaloes before transferring, but after scoring 27 points against Tulane, she went on a five-game run of scoring in double digits.Â
She was essentially the missing link to complete the five-person class, and combined with the veteran frontcourt presences of Emma Guy and Georgia Pineau, the Eagles emerged in the second half of the season as a Cinderella story in college basketball. For the first time in program history, a win at Notre Dame preceded the first-ever season sweep over the Fighting Irish, and wins over North Carolina, Miami and Syracuse pushed BC onto the NCAA bubble in time for ACC Tournament wins over Clemson and Duke, the latter of which was a dramatic, seven-point win.
"I don't think [transferring] into any other group would have been doable," Swartz said. "This group accepted me right way. There were definitely ups and downs to coming in late, but it wouldn't have been possible to feel how I felt or how close it would have been with any other teams. I won't forget how they had just come back [to BC] from a game, and it was late. The entire team came by [my dorm] to make me feel welcome. That sisterhood is something."
Unfortunately for BC, the trajectory into the tournament and points north derailed when COVID-19 arrived. The pandemic's initial outburst canceled the 2020 NCAA Tournament and left the Eagles knowing they had done enough to get into a dance to which no music played, and as the months stretched into the next season, they started 2020-2021 with heightened expectations against the most unknown backdrop.
It was, as Bernabei-McNamee said in her preseason press conference this year, a "debacle." COVID-induced pauses and isolation protocols kept BC from ever gaining momentum, and an abbreviated, 19-game season ended with a 2-11 league campaign. A team known for its ebullient nature looked exhausted at the season's end, but as this year started, the bonds that started in those first two years grew stronger in the face of that adversity, instead of breaking apart as could have happened.
And as new players emerged, BC's now-veteran senior class assumed its rightful position as the matriarchs of a new day. They had done it all and experienced everything, and through it all, they simply relied on each other. That culture, the foundation of which they laid four years earlier, was now a piece of what made BC a destination, and throughout this year, a best-kept secret in college basketball emerged as more people found their way to a team that won with smiles and teamwork as much as as a gritty, defensive style that made coaches happy to watch.
"Having our senior night with all of our friends, all of our fans, and everybody thanking us," said Ford, "shows us that we've made a really big impact not only for this team and this program, but also the BC community. Having kids come up to us wanting us to sign their shirts, stuff like that, is really amazing."
All of that factored into the celebration on Sunday afternoon for a team that started from square one with a coach staff dedicated to making them better. They weren't simply happy to be there as much as they went out with a different, business-like attitude…yet they still retained the same happiness and celebratory atmosphere of the past three years. Through it all, they stood together, and in that final timeout, they hugged, knowing the tears of hearing Conte Forum cheers were in their final act, a moment Dickens referred to as "bittersweet."
Yet somehow, through those seconds, a fire lit by their arrivals over the past four years still burned, and with two games remaining on the schedule, there is still something to prove. This senior class has won plenty of basketball games and put BC squarely into the NCAA Tournament picture, but regardless of the situation, a berth in the big dance still hasn't happened.Â
There is still a postseason drought that dates back over a decade. In 2011, BC went to the WNIT and advanced to the Regional Semifinals after beating Yale and St. Joseph's. It was the Eagles' third trip to that particular tournament in four years, but reaching the Sweet Sixteen in each of their berths didn't result in postseason hardware despite three 20-win seasons.
That was the last time BC played in a postseason game, but the NCAA Tournament drought dates back even a few years earlier than that to when Cathy Inglese's golden era Eagles advanced to the Sweet Sixteen in 2006 in their seventh trip to March Madness over an eight-year span. They had turned into a Big East powerhouse that annually ranked in the top-25, and the move to the ACC didn't diminish those expectations after the team won 21 games and finished the year ranked 19th.
No new year has been lifted to the Conte Forum rafters since that year, and it's not lost on this year's team how simply being good enough wasn't enough. They have to win their way into the tournament in order to prove to the world that they have national championship aspirations, and despite the emotion of Sunday's Senior Day, the job's business is still very much unfinished.
"We have to go dancing," Soule said. "It's not a question of if we have to do it with this group. We know what it takes to get there, and it's not going to be easy. Sometimes it's not even in your control. But what we've always talked about is having to control what you can control. Winning [Sunday] and moving onto the next one is how we prepare. That's something we've known since the first day, and what we want to do is to be the group that's this program back to the tournament. We work hard every day, and even though we don't get enough credit nationally or in general, this group deserves that status."
Both of BC's final two games are on the road this week as the Eagles head to both Duke and Syracuse to wrap up the 2021-2022 regular season. It begins on Thursday in Durham with an 8 p.m. start as part of the ACC's Regional Sports Network coverage, locally in Boston on NESN.
Players Mentioned
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/ Women's BasketballSunday, October 25
Sunday, October 25
Saturday, October 24
Saturday, October 24
