BC Hits First Checkpoint In WNIT Win Over Maine
March 18, 2022 | Women's Basketball, #ForBoston Files
The Eagles advanced to play either Rhode Island or Quinnipiac.
Taylor Soule admitted she took a play off.
Four minutes remained in Boston College's WNIT First Round matchup against Maine, but Black Bears' hopes of upsetting a No. 1 seed were dwindling quickly into the Chestnut Hill night. They had sliced into the Eagles' 20-point lead and brought the game back to within 15, but a 90-second stagnation in the two teams' offenses slowly erased any dreams of advancing past the first round. All that remained was a final stamp, and Soule, watching from her defensive position, knew it was happening.
It had come from Marnelle Garraud, the assist maker on a dagger three-pointer seconds earlier. She drew Maine's Alba Orois on a defensive assignment and forced a mishandle, but as the ball bounced towards the sideline, the sprinting senior grabbed it as she thundered out of bounds. Soule thought it was going out for a whistle, but as the ball caught the Conte Forum air, she instead watched the awaiting hands of Cameron Swartz streak towards the basket for an uncontested layup.Â
The BC bench exploded in delight. The lead was back up to 19 points, and after another steal and fast-break, Maine substituted out its senior leaders before conceding a 69-44 loss to the better, more powerful, top-seeded Eagles.
"I stopped playing," Soule said. "From my angle, I saw Marnelle hustling, and I thought to get back on defense. Then all of a sudden, everything just slowed down. The bench [exploded], and I was happy that it wasn't a turnover. We love hustling like that. That was a good play."
Playing in any postseason tournament offers a different dynamic from any situation during the regular season or conference tournament. The margins for error evaporate as teams no longer jockey for some imaginary position along an invisible bubble conversation. Goals simplify as coaches instruct players on how to end someone else's season.Â
It's arguably the most difficult thing to do, and BC entered Thursday after running an emotional gauntlet. More than two weeks passed since the Eagles' last game, and the loss to Florida State in the ACC Tournament hung like a bad shadow as other conference tournaments produced bubble dreams and automatic bids. The Eagles still believed they would dance in the NCAA Tournament, but the selection committee's fickle decision omitted them in favor of the very same Seminoles who beat them over a week earlier.
The Eagles were left as the first team out of the NCAA Tournament, and questions remained about how they would respond in the first round of a single elimination tournament. Playing as the top seed carried its own brand of pressure, and Maine, the America East regular season champion, was not entering BC as a token opponent after the WNIT offered redemption and consolation following its conference tournament loss to Albany.
"Maine has been a postseason team year-in and year-out," head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee said. "On top of that, this was their shot, too. They were just as heartbroken as we were because they beat Albany twice during the season and lost the America East championship [in their last game], and we were heartbroken because we really thought we should have been an NCAA team. We both had some heartache going into this game, but it showed a lot from both teams that we were going to put on our big girl pants, put a chip on our shoulder, and go show that we were going to play as hard as we can."
"It's been an emotional week," Soule said, "but whether it's life or basketball, you can't dwell on the past. If you're in a situation, you have to make the most out of it. So now our goal is to win a championship, and this was an important [game]."
Maine started the game with its hair on fire and raced out to a two-point lead over the clearly-rusty Eagles in the first quarter, but BC's rally in the second slammed the door on any of those hopes after it outscored the Black Bears by a 22-7 margin. A team that struggled with its rebounding in the first quarter woke up in the second, and a defense that allowed 18 points in the first held its opponent to 3-of-17 shooting while the offense remained hot.
"We got into a little bit of full-court press, which really sparked the energy and got us going," Bernabei-McNamee said. "Then we went back into a half-court zone and took away the backdoors that they were getting in the first quarter. They're well-versed [on the back-end] and well-coached to get those cuts and come off both backdoor and pick-and-rolls. I think going to zone took a little bit away from them and allowed us to get into the passing lanes to do what we do without giving the back door. It allowed us to be aggressive by pressing and then getting into an extended, half-court defense."
The effort bottled both of Maine's leading scorers, Maeve Carroll and Anne Simon, and even though the combination talled half of the Black Bear's offensive points, not much else dropped outside of forward Caroline Bornemann's 18 points. Only two other players - Orois and Adrianna Smith - scored points, but their individual field goals didn't help much on a night where their team shot under 30 percent from the field with just three free throw attempts.
BC, meanwhile, used its defense to anchor three quarters of offensive shooting. The Eagles never went below 50 percent and finished with 21 points from Soule, who added five rebounds and three assists. Maria Gakdeng added 13 points and four rebounds in the middle while Kaylah Ivey assumed command of the offense and matured into a 10-point, two-assist game.
"There's nobody in the open court that sees the next pass better," Bernabei-McNamee said. "Her coordination is impeccable, and where she's really growing her game is in that floor general aspect. The last couple of days in practice, she's been a maniac talking and really controlling what we're doing in practice. She's been a spark in leadership, and she's playing to the best of her ability. She puts a lot of time into her game. She shows every day that she has a nice shot, and she's playing with that confidence."
"It was mainly just letting the game come to me," Ivey responded, "and playing with a lot of confidence. There are things I've been working on since freshman year that I'm still consistently working on, but letting the game come to me allows me to be patient and do whatever I can to help my team."
Beating Maine earned BC its first postseason win since a WNIT Second Round win over St. Josephs' in 2011, and the Eagles advanced to the Second Round of any postseason tournament for the seventh consecutive time. They haven't been eliminated in the first round since a 2002 upset loss to Mississippi State in the NCAA Tournament and defeated an America East team for the third time in four overall trips to the WNIT.
They now meet the winner of the Rhode Island-Quinnipiac game on Friday with a chance to advance to the Regional Semifinals for the first time since their last postseason appearance in 2011. Neither team played BC during this season, but the Rams played the Eagles in 2019-2020 with BC winning, 66-55.
Four minutes remained in Boston College's WNIT First Round matchup against Maine, but Black Bears' hopes of upsetting a No. 1 seed were dwindling quickly into the Chestnut Hill night. They had sliced into the Eagles' 20-point lead and brought the game back to within 15, but a 90-second stagnation in the two teams' offenses slowly erased any dreams of advancing past the first round. All that remained was a final stamp, and Soule, watching from her defensive position, knew it was happening.
It had come from Marnelle Garraud, the assist maker on a dagger three-pointer seconds earlier. She drew Maine's Alba Orois on a defensive assignment and forced a mishandle, but as the ball bounced towards the sideline, the sprinting senior grabbed it as she thundered out of bounds. Soule thought it was going out for a whistle, but as the ball caught the Conte Forum air, she instead watched the awaiting hands of Cameron Swartz streak towards the basket for an uncontested layup.Â
The BC bench exploded in delight. The lead was back up to 19 points, and after another steal and fast-break, Maine substituted out its senior leaders before conceding a 69-44 loss to the better, more powerful, top-seeded Eagles.
"I stopped playing," Soule said. "From my angle, I saw Marnelle hustling, and I thought to get back on defense. Then all of a sudden, everything just slowed down. The bench [exploded], and I was happy that it wasn't a turnover. We love hustling like that. That was a good play."
Playing in any postseason tournament offers a different dynamic from any situation during the regular season or conference tournament. The margins for error evaporate as teams no longer jockey for some imaginary position along an invisible bubble conversation. Goals simplify as coaches instruct players on how to end someone else's season.Â
It's arguably the most difficult thing to do, and BC entered Thursday after running an emotional gauntlet. More than two weeks passed since the Eagles' last game, and the loss to Florida State in the ACC Tournament hung like a bad shadow as other conference tournaments produced bubble dreams and automatic bids. The Eagles still believed they would dance in the NCAA Tournament, but the selection committee's fickle decision omitted them in favor of the very same Seminoles who beat them over a week earlier.
The Eagles were left as the first team out of the NCAA Tournament, and questions remained about how they would respond in the first round of a single elimination tournament. Playing as the top seed carried its own brand of pressure, and Maine, the America East regular season champion, was not entering BC as a token opponent after the WNIT offered redemption and consolation following its conference tournament loss to Albany.
"Maine has been a postseason team year-in and year-out," head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee said. "On top of that, this was their shot, too. They were just as heartbroken as we were because they beat Albany twice during the season and lost the America East championship [in their last game], and we were heartbroken because we really thought we should have been an NCAA team. We both had some heartache going into this game, but it showed a lot from both teams that we were going to put on our big girl pants, put a chip on our shoulder, and go show that we were going to play as hard as we can."
"It's been an emotional week," Soule said, "but whether it's life or basketball, you can't dwell on the past. If you're in a situation, you have to make the most out of it. So now our goal is to win a championship, and this was an important [game]."
Maine started the game with its hair on fire and raced out to a two-point lead over the clearly-rusty Eagles in the first quarter, but BC's rally in the second slammed the door on any of those hopes after it outscored the Black Bears by a 22-7 margin. A team that struggled with its rebounding in the first quarter woke up in the second, and a defense that allowed 18 points in the first held its opponent to 3-of-17 shooting while the offense remained hot.
"We got into a little bit of full-court press, which really sparked the energy and got us going," Bernabei-McNamee said. "Then we went back into a half-court zone and took away the backdoors that they were getting in the first quarter. They're well-versed [on the back-end] and well-coached to get those cuts and come off both backdoor and pick-and-rolls. I think going to zone took a little bit away from them and allowed us to get into the passing lanes to do what we do without giving the back door. It allowed us to be aggressive by pressing and then getting into an extended, half-court defense."
The effort bottled both of Maine's leading scorers, Maeve Carroll and Anne Simon, and even though the combination talled half of the Black Bear's offensive points, not much else dropped outside of forward Caroline Bornemann's 18 points. Only two other players - Orois and Adrianna Smith - scored points, but their individual field goals didn't help much on a night where their team shot under 30 percent from the field with just three free throw attempts.
BC, meanwhile, used its defense to anchor three quarters of offensive shooting. The Eagles never went below 50 percent and finished with 21 points from Soule, who added five rebounds and three assists. Maria Gakdeng added 13 points and four rebounds in the middle while Kaylah Ivey assumed command of the offense and matured into a 10-point, two-assist game.
"There's nobody in the open court that sees the next pass better," Bernabei-McNamee said. "Her coordination is impeccable, and where she's really growing her game is in that floor general aspect. The last couple of days in practice, she's been a maniac talking and really controlling what we're doing in practice. She's been a spark in leadership, and she's playing to the best of her ability. She puts a lot of time into her game. She shows every day that she has a nice shot, and she's playing with that confidence."
"It was mainly just letting the game come to me," Ivey responded, "and playing with a lot of confidence. There are things I've been working on since freshman year that I'm still consistently working on, but letting the game come to me allows me to be patient and do whatever I can to help my team."
Beating Maine earned BC its first postseason win since a WNIT Second Round win over St. Josephs' in 2011, and the Eagles advanced to the Second Round of any postseason tournament for the seventh consecutive time. They haven't been eliminated in the first round since a 2002 upset loss to Mississippi State in the NCAA Tournament and defeated an America East team for the third time in four overall trips to the WNIT.
They now meet the winner of the Rhode Island-Quinnipiac game on Friday with a chance to advance to the Regional Semifinals for the first time since their last postseason appearance in 2011. Neither team played BC during this season, but the Rams played the Eagles in 2019-2020 with BC winning, 66-55.
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