Boston College Athletics
Photo by: Joe Sullivan
March 06, 2024 | Women's Basketball, #ForBoston Files
BC advances to play Louisville in a game that suddenly looks more intriguing.
Joanna Bernabei-McNamee never changed her approach when it came to constructing the 2023-2024 Boston College women's basketball program. The roster was always going to be undersized compared to the Goliaths who brought physical basketball to the Atlantic Coast Conference, but she understood how a collective and resilient attitude within the Eagles would allow the team to lean into the unchanged pillars of years past.
She emphasized a never-changing tune, and despite BC losing 10 straight games throughout the second half of the season, the desire remained constant to have the Eagles play with a fast and gritty style capable of swarming opponents with an agile roster devoid of true positioning. It felt Sisyphean at times, but the desire burned a hole through Conte Forum and the Hoag Basketball Pavilion to achieve goals through a sweat equity other teams wouldn't possess.
Not even being relegated to the first round of the ACC Tournament stopped the Eagles from leaning into that headstrong attitude, and on Wednesday afternoon, a third consecutive win advanced BC to Thursday's Second Round with an 85-72 win over Clemson that stamped a two-way game quickly bursting onto the national scene.
"I think we're coming together at the right time," said senior Dontavia Waggoner, "and we're just building off momentum. I think those last two wins [of the regular season], we're just going to keep building off of it. We're playing together. We're playing with all of our energy, and that's key for us right now."
The most dangerous team in a postseason tournament is the one that doesn't believe it has anything to lose, but Wednesday's first round illustrated the inherent danger in overcommitting to defending any one particular area of the Eagles' overall game. For the third straight game, a player in a BC uniform scored 20-plus points, but where JoJo Lacey splashed three-pointers against North Carolina and where Waggoner worked both ends of the floor in a 24-point performance against Pittsburgh melted into an array of offensive opportunities for both Teya Sidberry and T'Yana Todd, both of whom finished with eight made field goals.
Each played a different piece of BC's overall style, but both fed off a defensive effort that jump-started the offense by locking down Clemson's overall scheme. They each played the wings of a 2-3 zone defense, which in turn allowed them to run the floor with Kaylah Ivey at the point after Waggoner locked down the painted area near the rim. Clemson, in turn, had to come out of its zone to play a man-to-man defense, but the Tigers lacked the overall chops to go head-to-head with two players who traded different types of offensive sets.
"They found much more of an offensive groove than when we played them the first time," said Clemson head coach Amanda Butler. "We did not play very well against them the first time, either, [and] didn't take care of the basketball and had some circumstances that weren't necessarily prevalent today."
BC didn't outright stop Clemson, but the Tigers never accumulated a run capable of overcoming the Eagles' overall swarm. By halfway through the second quarter, a further stretch that stopped Clemson's offense cold for nearly two minutes pushed BC to a double-digit lead after the team scored 20 of its first 36 points off of 10 Tiger turnovers, and even though the half ended with the team's field goal percentage dipping to under 50 percent, an 15-percent increase on three-pointers forced Clemson to abandon finding second or third options outside of Dayshanette Harris and Ruby Whitehorn.
"What was working offensively was just getting downhill and attacking," Harris said, "and shooters were able to knock down shots to open up the lane. [We were] just taking advantage of the things that we did well."
"For me," Whitehorn added, "I would say that something I've really gained these past few games and this game [was] just an aggressive mindset or more of an aggressive mindset, and just the confidence that my teammates have in me in taking my shots."
Clemson would eventually cut the lead to four by the halfway point of the fourth quarter, but the short anxiety attack was the last gasp of a team that couldn't overcome the open door policy to those running wings. In the end, Sidberry and Todd combined for 44 points by going 16-for-28 from the floor, with Sidberry gaining a double-double by grabbing 10 rebounds while Todd went 5-for-6 from outside. Ivey added 12 assists, and Waggoner very quietly added 18 points before fouling out in the game's late stages while Andrea Daley added 13 points with three steals on the back end.
Nobody on the Tigers, meanwhile, matched Harris and Whitehorn aside from Amari Robinson's 15 points, and the Eagles executed one of the hardest jobs in all of sports by ending Clemson's season on the first day of the conference postseason tournament. A strong performance by all accounts, it gave BC pause to return home for another day after winning a third straight game for the first time since a late December romp through the end of the non-conference schedule.
But beyond everything, the Eagles were able to enjoy a moment of reprieve on a season-long quest for rejoin the ACC's middle-to-elite tier. They advanced to play Louisville in an 11 a.m. game on Thursday while continuing a journey few thought would ever have reached this point. They offered windows into their grit by bearing down on the court, and they allowed themselves to enjoy the aftermath by placing the BC logo - that interlocking sticker to which they all sacrificed - onto the second round in a hallway where Clemson made the arduous walk to head home just moments before the celebration spilled to the bracket.
"I think we had a complete team, offensive and defensive, game," said Bernabei-McNamee. "That shows from where you saw that we had 22 assists. They were playing. They were moving. I think we're all coming together at the right time, and I love the way they're sticking together."
BC and Louisville tip-off on Thursday at 11 a.m. from the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina. The game can be seen on the ACC Network as the kickoff game to the second day of coverage from the ACC Tournament. Whichever team wins will advance to Friday's Quarterfinal matchup against fourth-seeded Notre Dame in a game also slated to begin at 11 a.m.
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She emphasized a never-changing tune, and despite BC losing 10 straight games throughout the second half of the season, the desire remained constant to have the Eagles play with a fast and gritty style capable of swarming opponents with an agile roster devoid of true positioning. It felt Sisyphean at times, but the desire burned a hole through Conte Forum and the Hoag Basketball Pavilion to achieve goals through a sweat equity other teams wouldn't possess.
Not even being relegated to the first round of the ACC Tournament stopped the Eagles from leaning into that headstrong attitude, and on Wednesday afternoon, a third consecutive win advanced BC to Thursday's Second Round with an 85-72 win over Clemson that stamped a two-way game quickly bursting onto the national scene.
"I think we're coming together at the right time," said senior Dontavia Waggoner, "and we're just building off momentum. I think those last two wins [of the regular season], we're just going to keep building off of it. We're playing together. We're playing with all of our energy, and that's key for us right now."
The most dangerous team in a postseason tournament is the one that doesn't believe it has anything to lose, but Wednesday's first round illustrated the inherent danger in overcommitting to defending any one particular area of the Eagles' overall game. For the third straight game, a player in a BC uniform scored 20-plus points, but where JoJo Lacey splashed three-pointers against North Carolina and where Waggoner worked both ends of the floor in a 24-point performance against Pittsburgh melted into an array of offensive opportunities for both Teya Sidberry and T'Yana Todd, both of whom finished with eight made field goals.
Each played a different piece of BC's overall style, but both fed off a defensive effort that jump-started the offense by locking down Clemson's overall scheme. They each played the wings of a 2-3 zone defense, which in turn allowed them to run the floor with Kaylah Ivey at the point after Waggoner locked down the painted area near the rim. Clemson, in turn, had to come out of its zone to play a man-to-man defense, but the Tigers lacked the overall chops to go head-to-head with two players who traded different types of offensive sets.
"They found much more of an offensive groove than when we played them the first time," said Clemson head coach Amanda Butler. "We did not play very well against them the first time, either, [and] didn't take care of the basketball and had some circumstances that weren't necessarily prevalent today."
BC didn't outright stop Clemson, but the Tigers never accumulated a run capable of overcoming the Eagles' overall swarm. By halfway through the second quarter, a further stretch that stopped Clemson's offense cold for nearly two minutes pushed BC to a double-digit lead after the team scored 20 of its first 36 points off of 10 Tiger turnovers, and even though the half ended with the team's field goal percentage dipping to under 50 percent, an 15-percent increase on three-pointers forced Clemson to abandon finding second or third options outside of Dayshanette Harris and Ruby Whitehorn.
"What was working offensively was just getting downhill and attacking," Harris said, "and shooters were able to knock down shots to open up the lane. [We were] just taking advantage of the things that we did well."
"For me," Whitehorn added, "I would say that something I've really gained these past few games and this game [was] just an aggressive mindset or more of an aggressive mindset, and just the confidence that my teammates have in me in taking my shots."
Clemson would eventually cut the lead to four by the halfway point of the fourth quarter, but the short anxiety attack was the last gasp of a team that couldn't overcome the open door policy to those running wings. In the end, Sidberry and Todd combined for 44 points by going 16-for-28 from the floor, with Sidberry gaining a double-double by grabbing 10 rebounds while Todd went 5-for-6 from outside. Ivey added 12 assists, and Waggoner very quietly added 18 points before fouling out in the game's late stages while Andrea Daley added 13 points with three steals on the back end.
Nobody on the Tigers, meanwhile, matched Harris and Whitehorn aside from Amari Robinson's 15 points, and the Eagles executed one of the hardest jobs in all of sports by ending Clemson's season on the first day of the conference postseason tournament. A strong performance by all accounts, it gave BC pause to return home for another day after winning a third straight game for the first time since a late December romp through the end of the non-conference schedule.
But beyond everything, the Eagles were able to enjoy a moment of reprieve on a season-long quest for rejoin the ACC's middle-to-elite tier. They advanced to play Louisville in an 11 a.m. game on Thursday while continuing a journey few thought would ever have reached this point. They offered windows into their grit by bearing down on the court, and they allowed themselves to enjoy the aftermath by placing the BC logo - that interlocking sticker to which they all sacrificed - onto the second round in a hallway where Clemson made the arduous walk to head home just moments before the celebration spilled to the bracket.
"I think we had a complete team, offensive and defensive, game," said Bernabei-McNamee. "That shows from where you saw that we had 22 assists. They were playing. They were moving. I think we're all coming together at the right time, and I love the way they're sticking together."
BC and Louisville tip-off on Thursday at 11 a.m. from the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina. The game can be seen on the ACC Network as the kickoff game to the second day of coverage from the ACC Tournament. Whichever team wins will advance to Friday's Quarterfinal matchup against fourth-seeded Notre Dame in a game also slated to begin at 11 a.m.
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Players Mentioned
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