It's Tourney Time. Let The Madness Begin.
March 01, 2022 | Women's Basketball, #ForBoston Files
BC heads to Greensboro looking to continue proving its worth as an NCAA Tournament contender.
Nothing in sports can compare to the organically manufactured drama associated with March Madness. The sense of urgency and the critical feel are very real and lend into the notion that every game carries season-altering implications. The twists and turns are impossible to top even as they change storylines over the course of the entire month.
The inherent demolition derby creates the images and highlights embedded within a program's immortal history, but there's no way of knowing which programs wear Cinderella's glass slipper. The clock, as unemotional as anything in sports, strikes midnight as easily as it crowns champions, which is why this time of year is untouched in both its simplicity and its ability to satisfy the cravings of any sports fan.
Two years after Boston College arrived in the ACC Tournament as a Cinderella story, the Eagles are returning with a belief in their ability to hang and beat the best. Yet there's still that edge, the validation, that they seek, and as Greensboro looms, a BC team that once was a plucky upstart is now searching for the final hammer to shatter the remains of a college basketball glass ceiling.
"We're really excited to get to the tournament," head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee said. "I think the way we ended the regular season on that road swing with a couple of wins really helped us prepare to go into the ACC Tournament. We're feeling both confident and ready for more action. I'm glad that we get at least two nights in our beds because that was a long five-day swing [at the end of the season], but that makes it all the more exciting to get back out there."
The Eagles understand what's at stake this week after using the conference tournament to essentially sew up an NCAA Tournament appearance two weeks. They finished tied for fourth place that year but fell to sixth in the seeding after losing both a secondary tiebreaker to Florida State and a head-to-head tiebreaker with Virginia Tech, but a second round win over Clemson and a quarterfinals win over Duke enabled BC to hang with N.C. State in the semifinals before the Wolfpack won the conference championship a day later.
Nearly everyone agreed the run did enough to send BC into the national tournament, but after bubble-watching other conference tournaments, the COVID-19 pandemic's initial outbreak canceled the remainder of the postseason. It erased a 20-win season in the blink of an eye and ended a magical run that included eight wins over the final 10-game stretch.
"We were just so excited [for that trip]," Bernabei-McNamee said. "We knew we had to prove ourselves, and we went [into Greensboro] knowing we needed those couple of wins in order to get to that place to play in the tournament."
The missed opportunity lingered, and the aftermath produced a messy season heavily impacted by the ongoing pandemic. Summer practice sessions didn't exist, and a choppy schedule lacked the preparative non-conference games to help BC hit a stride. The league slate was typically difficult, but stops and restarts induced by COVID protocols made it brutal to sustain any kind of positive momentum. The Eagles endured a six-win regular season, but not even a first round win over Pittsburgh in the ACC Tournament helped push BC past its second round game against Syracuse.
The 2020-2021 season was difficult to witness after the team hit so many strides during the previous year, but this year's team recommitted itself to the restored full schedule with a dedication that surpassed even the building years prior to 2019-2020. There was no struggle to regain mojo, almost as if the perseverance required to play last year lingered more than the proverbial postseason hangover from two years prior.
Almost immediately, BC became a bubble team to watch, and early non-conference wins over Providence, Penn State and UMass belied the hiccuping gaffes against Boston University and VCU. A near-upset over nationally-ranked North Carolina saw the Eagles hold a 16-point lead into the fourth quarter, and after going on a three-game run through the ACC, other near misses against Louisville and N.C. State, the latter of which involved an overtime thriller in Chestnut Hill, intertwined with wins over Notre Dame and Miami to put BC in a position to further prove its tournament worth this week to the NCAA selection committee.
"There's a little bit more pressure [this week] because this is something we've talked about all year," Bernabei-McNamee said. "I think we started to earn it with our play towards the end of the season, but we have to go out and again prove ourselves. I think we're expecting a lot more out of ourselves going into this tournament."
Understanding that minutiae highlights the differences between different years in the conference tournament. BC historically possessed a "devil-may-care" attitude as a team looking to upset teams out of the first round but kicked off its tournament two years ago against a like-minded Clemson team that upset Miami in its first round game. Last year, the Eagles reverted to that state by beating Pittsburgh in the opening round game before nearly earning an upset over fifth-seeded Syracuse.
This year's bracket will revert to its traditional 15-team format after Virginia and Duke opted out of last season, but BC still earned a first round bye after finishing tied for seventh with Miami and Florida State. The Hurricanes earned the No. 7 seed by virtue of their combined head-to-head tiebreaker over both teams, leaving the Eagles and Seminoles to play one another as the teams seeded eighth and ninth, with BC slotting into the No. 8 seed (though it should be noted that finishing eighth or ninth only changed the jersey color of that second round game).
Not playing a first round winner all avoids the potential for that tournament-branded upset where a lower-seeded team with momentum faces a higher-seeded, rusty team in its first game, but the path forward no longer avoids a matchup against N.C. State for either BC or the Seminoles. The winner will draw the regular season champion a day later with only 24 hours to recover for the No. 3 team in the nation.
"We're matching up with Florida State," Bernabei-McNamee said, "and we just saw them a few games ago. I think that probably helps both teams in the preparation for this game, but I know I speak for my staff and my team [when I say that] we're pretty fired up."
Boston College and Florida State tip off on Thursday at 2 p.m. from the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina. The game can be seen as part of the ACC's Regional Sports Network coverage, locally in Boston on NESN.
The inherent demolition derby creates the images and highlights embedded within a program's immortal history, but there's no way of knowing which programs wear Cinderella's glass slipper. The clock, as unemotional as anything in sports, strikes midnight as easily as it crowns champions, which is why this time of year is untouched in both its simplicity and its ability to satisfy the cravings of any sports fan.
Two years after Boston College arrived in the ACC Tournament as a Cinderella story, the Eagles are returning with a belief in their ability to hang and beat the best. Yet there's still that edge, the validation, that they seek, and as Greensboro looms, a BC team that once was a plucky upstart is now searching for the final hammer to shatter the remains of a college basketball glass ceiling.
"We're really excited to get to the tournament," head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee said. "I think the way we ended the regular season on that road swing with a couple of wins really helped us prepare to go into the ACC Tournament. We're feeling both confident and ready for more action. I'm glad that we get at least two nights in our beds because that was a long five-day swing [at the end of the season], but that makes it all the more exciting to get back out there."
The Eagles understand what's at stake this week after using the conference tournament to essentially sew up an NCAA Tournament appearance two weeks. They finished tied for fourth place that year but fell to sixth in the seeding after losing both a secondary tiebreaker to Florida State and a head-to-head tiebreaker with Virginia Tech, but a second round win over Clemson and a quarterfinals win over Duke enabled BC to hang with N.C. State in the semifinals before the Wolfpack won the conference championship a day later.
Nearly everyone agreed the run did enough to send BC into the national tournament, but after bubble-watching other conference tournaments, the COVID-19 pandemic's initial outbreak canceled the remainder of the postseason. It erased a 20-win season in the blink of an eye and ended a magical run that included eight wins over the final 10-game stretch.
"We were just so excited [for that trip]," Bernabei-McNamee said. "We knew we had to prove ourselves, and we went [into Greensboro] knowing we needed those couple of wins in order to get to that place to play in the tournament."
The missed opportunity lingered, and the aftermath produced a messy season heavily impacted by the ongoing pandemic. Summer practice sessions didn't exist, and a choppy schedule lacked the preparative non-conference games to help BC hit a stride. The league slate was typically difficult, but stops and restarts induced by COVID protocols made it brutal to sustain any kind of positive momentum. The Eagles endured a six-win regular season, but not even a first round win over Pittsburgh in the ACC Tournament helped push BC past its second round game against Syracuse.
The 2020-2021 season was difficult to witness after the team hit so many strides during the previous year, but this year's team recommitted itself to the restored full schedule with a dedication that surpassed even the building years prior to 2019-2020. There was no struggle to regain mojo, almost as if the perseverance required to play last year lingered more than the proverbial postseason hangover from two years prior.
Almost immediately, BC became a bubble team to watch, and early non-conference wins over Providence, Penn State and UMass belied the hiccuping gaffes against Boston University and VCU. A near-upset over nationally-ranked North Carolina saw the Eagles hold a 16-point lead into the fourth quarter, and after going on a three-game run through the ACC, other near misses against Louisville and N.C. State, the latter of which involved an overtime thriller in Chestnut Hill, intertwined with wins over Notre Dame and Miami to put BC in a position to further prove its tournament worth this week to the NCAA selection committee.
"There's a little bit more pressure [this week] because this is something we've talked about all year," Bernabei-McNamee said. "I think we started to earn it with our play towards the end of the season, but we have to go out and again prove ourselves. I think we're expecting a lot more out of ourselves going into this tournament."
Understanding that minutiae highlights the differences between different years in the conference tournament. BC historically possessed a "devil-may-care" attitude as a team looking to upset teams out of the first round but kicked off its tournament two years ago against a like-minded Clemson team that upset Miami in its first round game. Last year, the Eagles reverted to that state by beating Pittsburgh in the opening round game before nearly earning an upset over fifth-seeded Syracuse.
This year's bracket will revert to its traditional 15-team format after Virginia and Duke opted out of last season, but BC still earned a first round bye after finishing tied for seventh with Miami and Florida State. The Hurricanes earned the No. 7 seed by virtue of their combined head-to-head tiebreaker over both teams, leaving the Eagles and Seminoles to play one another as the teams seeded eighth and ninth, with BC slotting into the No. 8 seed (though it should be noted that finishing eighth or ninth only changed the jersey color of that second round game).
Not playing a first round winner all avoids the potential for that tournament-branded upset where a lower-seeded team with momentum faces a higher-seeded, rusty team in its first game, but the path forward no longer avoids a matchup against N.C. State for either BC or the Seminoles. The winner will draw the regular season champion a day later with only 24 hours to recover for the No. 3 team in the nation.
"We're matching up with Florida State," Bernabei-McNamee said, "and we just saw them a few games ago. I think that probably helps both teams in the preparation for this game, but I know I speak for my staff and my team [when I say that] we're pretty fired up."
Boston College and Florida State tip off on Thursday at 2 p.m. from the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina. The game can be seen as part of the ACC's Regional Sports Network coverage, locally in Boston on NESN.
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