Eagles Eye Virginia After Turning Over Loss To Syracuse
January 14, 2023 | Women's Basketball, #ForBoston Files
BC lost by 10 in its last game against the Orange.
The Boston College women's basketball team understandably brimmed with confidence prior to its matchup against Syracuse. The previous two games inserted the Eagles into a postseason conversation with pocketed wins over NC State and Florida State, and the Orange didn't possess the same looming, thundering shadow of the two national tournament contenders despite their over-.500 record.Â
The larger body of work just didn't jump off the page, but four quarters and 40 minutes' worth of basketball changed the perception of the Orange in the ever-evolving ACC with an 83-73 result that simultaneously relegated BC into the middle tier of a conference that refuses to let up its chaos for one winter night.
"It was a frustrating game from a turnover standpoint," said head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee after the loss. "Their coach could say the same thing, that it was an ugly game, and I said coming into this game that if it was an ugly game, it favored [Syracuse]."
There was no other way to slice what happened to the Eagles on Thursday night after they committed 22 turnovers that produced 28 points for the Orange. The first handful of turnovers occurred before the first quarter reached its media break, and BC never fully synced the offense to a defense that buckled down to force an equal amount of giveaways from the Syracuse offense. It struggled early, and the miscues prevented any kind of fast break by separating the link between the defensive zone and the ability to push the ball into the frontcourt.
The throwaways never truly stopped and further allowed the Orange to force unfavorable matchups by dictating tempo. They played at a more methodical pace that limited BC to 10 points on the fast break while chopping the game flow to the degree that the Eagles averaged less than a point per possession and a 40 percent shooting rate.
They managed just 34 rebounds on the game and couldn't grab more than 19 defensive boards against a Syracuse team that shot 48 percent, and while nobody fouled out, the 20 team fouls helped the Orange shoot 21-for-26 from the free throw line. A lethally-timed three-point shot from the Florida State game evaporated into a 6-for-25 night from outside, and BC shot 75 percent from the stripe against a Syracuse side that avoided foul trouble by playing seven players for 15 minutes or more.
"Our turnovers led to an easy offense for them," Bernabei-McNamee said. "When our defense got set, it looked pretty darn good, but turning the ball over makes it hard to get set [on defense]. They wanted us to live in transition defense, and we just didn't do a good job of taking care of the ball and making the decisions on the offensive end, which put us in a scramble mode on the defensive end."
The performance felt uncharacteristic, but BC still mounted a late comeback in the fourth quarter by limiting its giveaways and employing a faster pace to its game. The Eagles committed nine fouls in the period because they were forced to intentionally commit penalties late, but the limited turnovers allowed JoJo Lacey to score 11 points in the quarter on 3-of-4 shooting. Andrea Daley likewise grabbed command in the backcourt to shoot 2-for-2 with a pair of free throws for a six-point quarter, and Dontavia Waggoner grabbed three defensive boards when the Orange went stone cold on 5-for-13 shooting.
The lineup included a switch to Ally VanTimmeren, who went for a plus-6 rating in four minutes, and a 9-0 run over a 40-second stretch slashed Syracuse's lead from 13 to four before a late 6-0 run pushed it back to nine, and another mini, 4-0 run caused by the fouls in the last 30 seconds finished BC with a 10-point loss that felt out of line with the way the team played in its previous two games.
"We took care of the ball and got some offensive rebounds," Bernabei-McNamee said, "and we got second opportunities. And I think that's the thing. We just had to take better care of the ball, and I'm going to revisit what I could have done differently on the coaching end, and I think that we'll see a whole different team come out in our next game."
BC returns to the court on Sunday when it plays at Virginia at 12 p.m. The game can be seen on national television via the ACC Network with online streaming available through ESPN's web platform and family of mobile device apps.
The larger body of work just didn't jump off the page, but four quarters and 40 minutes' worth of basketball changed the perception of the Orange in the ever-evolving ACC with an 83-73 result that simultaneously relegated BC into the middle tier of a conference that refuses to let up its chaos for one winter night.
"It was a frustrating game from a turnover standpoint," said head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee after the loss. "Their coach could say the same thing, that it was an ugly game, and I said coming into this game that if it was an ugly game, it favored [Syracuse]."
There was no other way to slice what happened to the Eagles on Thursday night after they committed 22 turnovers that produced 28 points for the Orange. The first handful of turnovers occurred before the first quarter reached its media break, and BC never fully synced the offense to a defense that buckled down to force an equal amount of giveaways from the Syracuse offense. It struggled early, and the miscues prevented any kind of fast break by separating the link between the defensive zone and the ability to push the ball into the frontcourt.
The throwaways never truly stopped and further allowed the Orange to force unfavorable matchups by dictating tempo. They played at a more methodical pace that limited BC to 10 points on the fast break while chopping the game flow to the degree that the Eagles averaged less than a point per possession and a 40 percent shooting rate.
They managed just 34 rebounds on the game and couldn't grab more than 19 defensive boards against a Syracuse team that shot 48 percent, and while nobody fouled out, the 20 team fouls helped the Orange shoot 21-for-26 from the free throw line. A lethally-timed three-point shot from the Florida State game evaporated into a 6-for-25 night from outside, and BC shot 75 percent from the stripe against a Syracuse side that avoided foul trouble by playing seven players for 15 minutes or more.
"Our turnovers led to an easy offense for them," Bernabei-McNamee said. "When our defense got set, it looked pretty darn good, but turning the ball over makes it hard to get set [on defense]. They wanted us to live in transition defense, and we just didn't do a good job of taking care of the ball and making the decisions on the offensive end, which put us in a scramble mode on the defensive end."
The performance felt uncharacteristic, but BC still mounted a late comeback in the fourth quarter by limiting its giveaways and employing a faster pace to its game. The Eagles committed nine fouls in the period because they were forced to intentionally commit penalties late, but the limited turnovers allowed JoJo Lacey to score 11 points in the quarter on 3-of-4 shooting. Andrea Daley likewise grabbed command in the backcourt to shoot 2-for-2 with a pair of free throws for a six-point quarter, and Dontavia Waggoner grabbed three defensive boards when the Orange went stone cold on 5-for-13 shooting.
The lineup included a switch to Ally VanTimmeren, who went for a plus-6 rating in four minutes, and a 9-0 run over a 40-second stretch slashed Syracuse's lead from 13 to four before a late 6-0 run pushed it back to nine, and another mini, 4-0 run caused by the fouls in the last 30 seconds finished BC with a 10-point loss that felt out of line with the way the team played in its previous two games.
"We took care of the ball and got some offensive rebounds," Bernabei-McNamee said, "and we got second opportunities. And I think that's the thing. We just had to take better care of the ball, and I'm going to revisit what I could have done differently on the coaching end, and I think that we'll see a whole different team come out in our next game."
BC returns to the court on Sunday when it plays at Virginia at 12 p.m. The game can be seen on national television via the ACC Network with online streaming available through ESPN's web platform and family of mobile device apps.
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