Eagles Turn Attention To WNIT After Selection Sunday Snub
March 15, 2022 | Women's Basketball, #ForBoston Files
BC hosts Maine on Thursday in the First Round of the WNIT
For the past 11 years, Boston College watched postseason basketball without competing in it. The Eagles witnessed champions earn crowns and visited arenas proclaiming prizes awarded to the teams ending their respective seasons with wins. They didn't sniff the opportunity to do that at Conte Forum, and as the years rolled on, they were left to wonder about that feeling as classes graduated without ever competing for championship glory.
The decade-plus felt like the drought was impossible to break, but on Thursday night, the interminable impossibility becomes reality when Boston College hosts Maine in the first round of the WNIT. In some ways, it's not the matchup the Eagles envisioned or even hoped to see, but even having the opportunity isn't anything this team is taking for granted, not after all it witnessed and experienced over the past 11 years.
"It's nice to be in a position where you get to go and hopefully play hard," head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee said. "The field of teams [in the WNIT] is no joke. It's great competition. You earn getting into the WNIT because you're a dominant team that won games over the last year. At the end of the year, you're there because you were chosen, and when I looked at this field of teams, there are a lot of good programs in there. We're excited to be a part of it."
It's not a bad consolation prize considering Sunday night initially felt like an inescapable bad dream. The Eagles felt primed to earn their first NCAA Tournament berth since 2006 after a 19-win season catapulted them into the conversation. They were a bubble team, but ESPN told BC to have a camera ready to capture the moment if its name appeared in the tournament field. The Eagles were one of a dozen programs featured in the multi-box of bubble contenders, and as the studio began unveiling matchups, others celebrated their invitations to the newly-expanded field of 68 teams.
A very different mood leaked into Conte Forum as other teams - Florida State, Missouri State, DePaul and, finally, Villanova - all appeared, and as the cutaways reveled in their future matchups, BC found itself on the outside without a dance partner, having missed the tournament despite holding a solid resume with wins over tournament-bound Miami and Atlantic-10 champion UMass.
"I was emotional," Bernabei-McNamee said. "My heart literally felt like it broke in my chest, so I can just imagine how our players felt. It was a crushing blow, especially when ESPN contacts you and tells you to get ready. It gives you all this buzz and excitement about when your name is going to be called, and that's just true heartbreak and disappointment."
The revelation that BC was the first team left out of the tournament compounded the confusion, but the Eagles soon realized their status as the 69th team in a 68-team bracket meant their season could still continue. They were the highest-remaining ACC program, which earned them an automatic berth in the Women's NIT, so they resolved to mourn the NCAA Tournament for a night before recommitting to a championship run the next day.
Striking that balance subsequently enabled the Eagles to embrace the disappointment of missing the NCAA Tournament while transitioning into the opportunity presented by the WNIT. It has long been recognized as a consolation prize for programs, and the teams that succeed in the secondary tournament often springboard into national tournament form in the coming years. Both Ole Miss and Delaware, for example, were part of last year's 32-team bracket, and both made the NCAA Tournament this year after advancing to the WNIT Final Four.
"I thought we played well enough and deserved an opportunity to play in the NCAA Tournament," Bernabei-McNamee said, "but that being said, life happens…I know I was dejected and needed to sleep on it. That kind of rejuvenated me, and we probably had one of our best practices of the year [on Monday].Â
"We said that we're in championship season mode," she continued, "and we're going to approach the WNIT just like it was the NCAA championship. We're going to go as hard as we can and see what we can do."
That doesn't mean that this year's WNIT is going to afford BC a walkthrough to the Final Four. The Eagles' regional bracket includes a number of regular season champions who lost in their respective conference tournaments, and the first two rounds of the tournament offer juicy matchups for whomever advances. Rhode Island, the second place team in the Atlantic-10, plays a Quinnipiac team that finished third in the MAAC and only lost to No. 4 Indiana by eight when the Hoosiers visited Connecticut in November. Holy Cross will head to Columbia after winning the Patriot League regular season crown, and Drexel hosts Norfolk State after winning the CAA regular season title.Â
BC's first round opponent, Maine, won the America East regular season before losing to third-seeded Albany, while second-seeded Stony Brook, which also lost to Albany in the AEC Tournament, drew VCU, a team out of the A-10 that defeated BC during the regular season.
Other brackets have similar upset possibilities among teams that barely missed the NCAA Tournament. South Dakota State, for example, won the Summit League's regular season championship but lost to South Dakota in the conference championship game. A possible date with Minnesota awaits in the second round while Missouri, another bubble team, is further down in a bracket with both Louisiana Tech and Tennessee Tech, two of the original women's basketball powerhouses.
"We're excited to be in a position where we can hopefully go out and play hard," Bernabei-McNamee said. "But I'll tell you, the field of teams is no joke. It's great competition. You earn getting into the NIT because you're a dominant team. At the end of the year, you're in there because you were chosen, and that's something that when I look at this field of teams, there are a lot of good programs in there."
The 2022 WNIT First Round matchup between Boston College and Maine kicks off at 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 17, from Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. The game can be seen on the ACC Network Extra, which is available through the ESPN online platform for cable subscribers with access to the ACC Network.
The decade-plus felt like the drought was impossible to break, but on Thursday night, the interminable impossibility becomes reality when Boston College hosts Maine in the first round of the WNIT. In some ways, it's not the matchup the Eagles envisioned or even hoped to see, but even having the opportunity isn't anything this team is taking for granted, not after all it witnessed and experienced over the past 11 years.
"It's nice to be in a position where you get to go and hopefully play hard," head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee said. "The field of teams [in the WNIT] is no joke. It's great competition. You earn getting into the WNIT because you're a dominant team that won games over the last year. At the end of the year, you're there because you were chosen, and when I looked at this field of teams, there are a lot of good programs in there. We're excited to be a part of it."
It's not a bad consolation prize considering Sunday night initially felt like an inescapable bad dream. The Eagles felt primed to earn their first NCAA Tournament berth since 2006 after a 19-win season catapulted them into the conversation. They were a bubble team, but ESPN told BC to have a camera ready to capture the moment if its name appeared in the tournament field. The Eagles were one of a dozen programs featured in the multi-box of bubble contenders, and as the studio began unveiling matchups, others celebrated their invitations to the newly-expanded field of 68 teams.
A very different mood leaked into Conte Forum as other teams - Florida State, Missouri State, DePaul and, finally, Villanova - all appeared, and as the cutaways reveled in their future matchups, BC found itself on the outside without a dance partner, having missed the tournament despite holding a solid resume with wins over tournament-bound Miami and Atlantic-10 champion UMass.
"I was emotional," Bernabei-McNamee said. "My heart literally felt like it broke in my chest, so I can just imagine how our players felt. It was a crushing blow, especially when ESPN contacts you and tells you to get ready. It gives you all this buzz and excitement about when your name is going to be called, and that's just true heartbreak and disappointment."
The revelation that BC was the first team left out of the tournament compounded the confusion, but the Eagles soon realized their status as the 69th team in a 68-team bracket meant their season could still continue. They were the highest-remaining ACC program, which earned them an automatic berth in the Women's NIT, so they resolved to mourn the NCAA Tournament for a night before recommitting to a championship run the next day.
Striking that balance subsequently enabled the Eagles to embrace the disappointment of missing the NCAA Tournament while transitioning into the opportunity presented by the WNIT. It has long been recognized as a consolation prize for programs, and the teams that succeed in the secondary tournament often springboard into national tournament form in the coming years. Both Ole Miss and Delaware, for example, were part of last year's 32-team bracket, and both made the NCAA Tournament this year after advancing to the WNIT Final Four.
"I thought we played well enough and deserved an opportunity to play in the NCAA Tournament," Bernabei-McNamee said, "but that being said, life happens…I know I was dejected and needed to sleep on it. That kind of rejuvenated me, and we probably had one of our best practices of the year [on Monday].Â
"We said that we're in championship season mode," she continued, "and we're going to approach the WNIT just like it was the NCAA championship. We're going to go as hard as we can and see what we can do."
That doesn't mean that this year's WNIT is going to afford BC a walkthrough to the Final Four. The Eagles' regional bracket includes a number of regular season champions who lost in their respective conference tournaments, and the first two rounds of the tournament offer juicy matchups for whomever advances. Rhode Island, the second place team in the Atlantic-10, plays a Quinnipiac team that finished third in the MAAC and only lost to No. 4 Indiana by eight when the Hoosiers visited Connecticut in November. Holy Cross will head to Columbia after winning the Patriot League regular season crown, and Drexel hosts Norfolk State after winning the CAA regular season title.Â
BC's first round opponent, Maine, won the America East regular season before losing to third-seeded Albany, while second-seeded Stony Brook, which also lost to Albany in the AEC Tournament, drew VCU, a team out of the A-10 that defeated BC during the regular season.
Other brackets have similar upset possibilities among teams that barely missed the NCAA Tournament. South Dakota State, for example, won the Summit League's regular season championship but lost to South Dakota in the conference championship game. A possible date with Minnesota awaits in the second round while Missouri, another bubble team, is further down in a bracket with both Louisiana Tech and Tennessee Tech, two of the original women's basketball powerhouses.
"We're excited to be in a position where we can hopefully go out and play hard," Bernabei-McNamee said. "But I'll tell you, the field of teams is no joke. It's great competition. You earn getting into the NIT because you're a dominant team. At the end of the year, you're in there because you were chosen, and that's something that when I look at this field of teams, there are a lot of good programs in there."
The 2022 WNIT First Round matchup between Boston College and Maine kicks off at 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 17, from Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. The game can be seen on the ACC Network Extra, which is available through the ESPN online platform for cable subscribers with access to the ACC Network.
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