Results Easy To Find As Eagles Develop New Style
January 24, 2024 | Women's Basketball, #ForBoston Files
BC is playing to its strengths and forming a new identity.
Joanna Bernabei-McNamee understood that this season centered around shifting and growing her Boston College women's basketball program. The center-based, run-and-gun offense first installed during the team's breakout to national tournament contention found new life in the aftermath of Emma Guy's graduation and departure, but remaining malleable to roster changes was a hallmark of the sixth-year head coach's regime.
She was flexible enough to ensure square pegs and round holes blended into new shapes, but nothing deviated from the pillars and values initially installed during the Eagles' pre-Covid era. Toughness and grit could vacillate between players recruited to perform at certain positions, but the current era's climate required BC to break cleanly from its past reputation.
Positioning within a system wasn't outdated, but Bernabei-McNamee needed to evolve her program to a new foundational structure. As February crests on the horizon, BC finds itself with a structure that's blossoming several players into primetime contenders even as growth and perseverance remain embedded in their overall DNA.
"There's no easy night in the ACC," Bernabei-McNamee said after last weekend's three-point win over Wake Forest. "Wake Forest came in with a good game plan and played really hard, but I was really proud of our players for grinding it out and getting the win. From top to bottom, the ACC is so, so good, so for us, it's just a matter of sticking to a game plan and putting one together that we believe in, then going out and executing and having confidence in ourselves that no matter what, we're going to be able to step up and play hard."
Sunday's loss at Georgia Tech highlighted the difficulties in producing night-after-night wins during the ACC schedule, but the 15-point decision masked just how the Eagles maintained their rugged durability against a highly-touted conference foe. They were equal to the Yellow Jackets in converting points off of forced turnovers and didn't definitively lose the rebounding or free throw battle. The defensive metrics showcased BC's ability to produce steals, and the only real difference stemmed from Georgia Tech's three extra three-pointers and the 10 assists produced by point guard Tonie Morgan.
BC wasn't a significant underdog on the court, and much of that is due to the team's overall approach. Both Teya Sidberry and Andrea Daley produced double-figure days on the offensive end, and both were on the floor for just under 40 percent of the Eagles' overall scoring plays. The ball subsequently ran through both of them on a quarter of BC's overall possessions, and Daley's eight rebounds bookended the seven-plus fouls drawn by Sidberry's presence.
Georgia Tech survived a dangerous BC team on Sunday, but the ability to perform basketball osmosis kept the Eagles alive after a first quarter deficit. The players who struck gold against Wake Forest struggled to hit shots in the first quarter against the Yellow Jackets, but shifting the execution from players like T'yana Todd and Dontavia Waggoner to Sidberry and Daley, who had scored 20 points against the Deacons, owed credit to a style that replaced players within the lineup with personnel already on the floor.
Erasing those positions meant neither Wake Forest nor Georgia Tech could account for the Eagles' ability to space the floor, and Sidberry, a player more likely to stand on the interior as a forward, shifted into a dribble-drive position while Daley moved closer to the basket. Waggoner moved freely from guard to forward spots, and Kaylah Ivey joined her by defending like a forward before turning up-court as a guard.Â
The havoc confused both opponents, and Georgia Tech found itself with a point guard in Morgan that had seven turnovers in addition to her 10 assists. The Yellow Jackets were able to counter BC with a smaller lineup - hence, the ability to match the Eagles and jump out to the early lead - but there was no denying how BC created opportunities against both opponents because of the free-roaming alignment.
"We didn't always look like we had great chemistry," Bernabei-McNamee said after the Wake Forest game, "but one thing I can say about [our team] is that they put so much time [into the work], on their own, to make sure that when the game is in crunch time, they can step up and play. I'm glad that the work shows in games like [Wake] because I can guarantee that T'yana is getting ready and getting fired up to go into her next one-on-one session after practice, and Teya is ready to get back to making sure that she's hitting [shots]. When you reinforce it with wins, it makes that hard work feel like it's paying off."
The wins haven't always been the easiest to earn, but that's life in the ACC. At 11-9 overall, the grit and hunger of BC's overall team game is making opponents earn their wins, and the 3-4 conference record is more of a byproduct of battling with an equally-tough conference with six teams at or within a game of first place and another seven teams at or within a game of BC's current standing. Miami is an Elite Eight team from last year but finds itself entering February one game behind the Eagles, and the lone difference separating a run at Duke is a head-to-head loss to a team that earned a No. 3 seed in last year's tournament.
Louisville, BC's next opponent, is a traditional powerhouse and enters Thursday night as an undefeated team on its home court, but the Cardinals are down to No. 16 and No. 18 in two respective polls because of a recent loss to North Carolina, another ranked ACC team. Head coach Jeff Walz shared a bench with Bernabei-McNamee when the duo won the national championship as assistant coaches on Brenda Freese's 2005-2006 Maryland Terrapins, and the four-time ACC regular season champion Cardinals have earned four trips to the Final Four - including a recent trip in 2022.
"I think the close games are kind of what we live for," Bernabei-McNamee said. "They're what make basketball fun. Our fan base gets really excited for the close games [that are part of the ACC]."
BC and Louisville tip-off on Thursday at 7 p.m. from the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Kentucky. The game can be seen on the ACC Network Extra, available through the ESPN online platform of Internet and mobile device apps.
She was flexible enough to ensure square pegs and round holes blended into new shapes, but nothing deviated from the pillars and values initially installed during the Eagles' pre-Covid era. Toughness and grit could vacillate between players recruited to perform at certain positions, but the current era's climate required BC to break cleanly from its past reputation.
Positioning within a system wasn't outdated, but Bernabei-McNamee needed to evolve her program to a new foundational structure. As February crests on the horizon, BC finds itself with a structure that's blossoming several players into primetime contenders even as growth and perseverance remain embedded in their overall DNA.
"There's no easy night in the ACC," Bernabei-McNamee said after last weekend's three-point win over Wake Forest. "Wake Forest came in with a good game plan and played really hard, but I was really proud of our players for grinding it out and getting the win. From top to bottom, the ACC is so, so good, so for us, it's just a matter of sticking to a game plan and putting one together that we believe in, then going out and executing and having confidence in ourselves that no matter what, we're going to be able to step up and play hard."
Sunday's loss at Georgia Tech highlighted the difficulties in producing night-after-night wins during the ACC schedule, but the 15-point decision masked just how the Eagles maintained their rugged durability against a highly-touted conference foe. They were equal to the Yellow Jackets in converting points off of forced turnovers and didn't definitively lose the rebounding or free throw battle. The defensive metrics showcased BC's ability to produce steals, and the only real difference stemmed from Georgia Tech's three extra three-pointers and the 10 assists produced by point guard Tonie Morgan.
BC wasn't a significant underdog on the court, and much of that is due to the team's overall approach. Both Teya Sidberry and Andrea Daley produced double-figure days on the offensive end, and both were on the floor for just under 40 percent of the Eagles' overall scoring plays. The ball subsequently ran through both of them on a quarter of BC's overall possessions, and Daley's eight rebounds bookended the seven-plus fouls drawn by Sidberry's presence.
Georgia Tech survived a dangerous BC team on Sunday, but the ability to perform basketball osmosis kept the Eagles alive after a first quarter deficit. The players who struck gold against Wake Forest struggled to hit shots in the first quarter against the Yellow Jackets, but shifting the execution from players like T'yana Todd and Dontavia Waggoner to Sidberry and Daley, who had scored 20 points against the Deacons, owed credit to a style that replaced players within the lineup with personnel already on the floor.
Erasing those positions meant neither Wake Forest nor Georgia Tech could account for the Eagles' ability to space the floor, and Sidberry, a player more likely to stand on the interior as a forward, shifted into a dribble-drive position while Daley moved closer to the basket. Waggoner moved freely from guard to forward spots, and Kaylah Ivey joined her by defending like a forward before turning up-court as a guard.Â
The havoc confused both opponents, and Georgia Tech found itself with a point guard in Morgan that had seven turnovers in addition to her 10 assists. The Yellow Jackets were able to counter BC with a smaller lineup - hence, the ability to match the Eagles and jump out to the early lead - but there was no denying how BC created opportunities against both opponents because of the free-roaming alignment.
"We didn't always look like we had great chemistry," Bernabei-McNamee said after the Wake Forest game, "but one thing I can say about [our team] is that they put so much time [into the work], on their own, to make sure that when the game is in crunch time, they can step up and play. I'm glad that the work shows in games like [Wake] because I can guarantee that T'yana is getting ready and getting fired up to go into her next one-on-one session after practice, and Teya is ready to get back to making sure that she's hitting [shots]. When you reinforce it with wins, it makes that hard work feel like it's paying off."
The wins haven't always been the easiest to earn, but that's life in the ACC. At 11-9 overall, the grit and hunger of BC's overall team game is making opponents earn their wins, and the 3-4 conference record is more of a byproduct of battling with an equally-tough conference with six teams at or within a game of first place and another seven teams at or within a game of BC's current standing. Miami is an Elite Eight team from last year but finds itself entering February one game behind the Eagles, and the lone difference separating a run at Duke is a head-to-head loss to a team that earned a No. 3 seed in last year's tournament.
Louisville, BC's next opponent, is a traditional powerhouse and enters Thursday night as an undefeated team on its home court, but the Cardinals are down to No. 16 and No. 18 in two respective polls because of a recent loss to North Carolina, another ranked ACC team. Head coach Jeff Walz shared a bench with Bernabei-McNamee when the duo won the national championship as assistant coaches on Brenda Freese's 2005-2006 Maryland Terrapins, and the four-time ACC regular season champion Cardinals have earned four trips to the Final Four - including a recent trip in 2022.
"I think the close games are kind of what we live for," Bernabei-McNamee said. "They're what make basketball fun. Our fan base gets really excited for the close games [that are part of the ACC]."
BC and Louisville tip-off on Thursday at 7 p.m. from the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Kentucky. The game can be seen on the ACC Network Extra, available through the ESPN online platform of Internet and mobile device apps.
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