Eagles Set To Write New Chapter In ACC Tournament's First Game
March 04, 2025 | Women's Basketball, #ForBoston Files
BC and Syracuse are about to make a little history against one another.
Boston College and Syracuse are often tied to one another within the Atlantic Coast Conference.
They're easy foils because of their respective geographic orientations. They remain the two most northern teams emblematic of the old Big East, so pairing them together is an easy decision compared to the entrenched Tobacco Road rivalries in North Carolina. History, ever dwindling in college sports, seems to show up whenever the Eagles play the Orange, so committing the two schools to one another is an easy, rubber stamp decision.
Much of their history is built around memories from the football gridiron or men's basketball hardwood, but in women's basketball, BC and Syracuse share a rich rivalry that blossomed over the Big East's initial run. Both were operating in shadows of larger programs, but even within their league, neither grabbed a brass run held most frequently by Connecticut, Providence and St. John's.
Early Syracuse dominance gave way to BC's consistent rise under the late Cathy Inglese, but the 2010s seeded victorious groves throughout Central New York. In the post-Covid era, each seemingly found wins against the other.
But a bit of history had never been achieved between the Eagles and Orange, who never met on the hardwoods twice in less than a week. Yet come Wednesday's ACC Tournament, the first game between BC and Syracuse is the latest and arguably the most unique chapter between two teams now seeking to end the other's season.
"We talked about [this matchup]," said BC head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee. "Maybe everything happens for a reason and we weren't meant to play well [enough] to win that game [on Sunday] because it's really hard to beat a good team three times. So now this gives us the opportunity to go from 0-0 or 1-1 and throw that ball up in the air in Greensboro, which will let us see how hard we can play against how hard they're going to play."
Shortened timelines are rare in college basketball, but the modern alignment within conferences makes it especially difficult to find two power conference teams with multiple head-to-head matchups in less than a week's time. In the ACC, an 18-team superconference carries a scheduling format lacking repeat matchups, and the playoff tournament drops the three lowest-finishing teams. Combined with byes to the second and third round, it's virtually impossible to find teams with games spanning the distance between the end of the regular season and the start of the tournament.
Yet this week echoes the 1994-1995 season finish that doubled as Cathy Inglese's first season behind the bench of the BC program. The Eagles only won six games during that entire year, but the two Big East wins ahead of the season finale against Georgetown were against highly-regarded Seton Hall and Pittsburgh. An extended losing streak enveloped January and early February, but close calls against Villanova, Syracuse and Providence dotted results that sent BC into the No. 10 seed long before the last game at Georgetown.
In a weird parallel to this year's ACC tournament, the result had no bearing on either team's seed, but absorbing the loss to BC enabled the Hoyas to play inspired basketball throughout an 84-60 win in the tournament's first game. Exactly 30 years later, a 25-point loss to Syracuse clinched a rematch in this week's first game, though flipping the result in 1995 wouldn't have changed the opponent where beating Syracuse would've aligned the BC against Clemson in this year's tournament.
"We looked lethargic in our last game," said Bernabei-McNamee, "and I'm sure [Syracuse head coach Felicia Legette-Jack] would say that the first time we played them at our place, they looked lethargic without [Georgia] Woolley. Both of us at full strength should be a really fun game. It'll be a battle, and I think both their team and our team takes pride in being a really gritty team. When they came [to BC], I'm sure they would say that they didn't play very gritty, and when we went there, we didn't play very gritty."
The rivalry adds a layer to BC's overall surge through the latter stages of an up-and-down season. What began with blowout wins over local competition eventually backslid into multiple losing streaks, but the Eagles still finished the year within one game of a .500 finish to the regular season. The six conference wins built on the five-win campaigns of the last two years by earning enough wins to get into the ACC Tournament, and last Thursday's Senior Day victory cashed chips against the No. 8 seed in this year's tournament.
Three players finished with double-figure averages, and Teya Sidberry's late season breakout gave the Eagles 20-point performances in each of the last two games with an additional two-game, 20-point streak against Florida State and Clemson. Her six double-doubles bookended the early season ACC/SEC Challenge game against Arkansas with a 22-point, 12-board night against the Hokies, and her ability to get to the line while defending the rim for 17 blocks on the year added another sector to a game already teeming with T'Yana Todd's volume three-pointers and Dontavia Waggoner's unheralded per-game, 13-point average.
"Teya's shown that even in games where she didn't have the numbers, she always gives 100 percent," Bernabei-McNamee said. "She's shown that it's something that I know I can count on because she takes pride in playing her hardest, no matter what.
"But for the ACC Tournament," she added, "we need to be able to give ourselves an opportunity to win, and that means we need to have more than one or two players show up with consistency. We saw it against Virginia Tech; a handful of players showed up and were ready to play, and we lacked that [against Syracuse]. I hope there's no better time for everybody to be rejuvenated than during the tournament time, and there's no better place for us to be ready for an all-hands-on-deck, everything-we-have [performance]."
No. 12 BC tips off against No. 13 Syracuse in the first game of the 2025 ACC Women's Basketball Championship in Greensboro, North Carolina's First Horizon Coliseum. Game time is set ofr 1 p.m. and can be seen on national television via the ACC Network. Online streaming is also available through the network's family of Internet and mobile device apps for cable subscribers with access to the channel.
They're easy foils because of their respective geographic orientations. They remain the two most northern teams emblematic of the old Big East, so pairing them together is an easy decision compared to the entrenched Tobacco Road rivalries in North Carolina. History, ever dwindling in college sports, seems to show up whenever the Eagles play the Orange, so committing the two schools to one another is an easy, rubber stamp decision.
Much of their history is built around memories from the football gridiron or men's basketball hardwood, but in women's basketball, BC and Syracuse share a rich rivalry that blossomed over the Big East's initial run. Both were operating in shadows of larger programs, but even within their league, neither grabbed a brass run held most frequently by Connecticut, Providence and St. John's.
Early Syracuse dominance gave way to BC's consistent rise under the late Cathy Inglese, but the 2010s seeded victorious groves throughout Central New York. In the post-Covid era, each seemingly found wins against the other.
But a bit of history had never been achieved between the Eagles and Orange, who never met on the hardwoods twice in less than a week. Yet come Wednesday's ACC Tournament, the first game between BC and Syracuse is the latest and arguably the most unique chapter between two teams now seeking to end the other's season.
"We talked about [this matchup]," said BC head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee. "Maybe everything happens for a reason and we weren't meant to play well [enough] to win that game [on Sunday] because it's really hard to beat a good team three times. So now this gives us the opportunity to go from 0-0 or 1-1 and throw that ball up in the air in Greensboro, which will let us see how hard we can play against how hard they're going to play."
Shortened timelines are rare in college basketball, but the modern alignment within conferences makes it especially difficult to find two power conference teams with multiple head-to-head matchups in less than a week's time. In the ACC, an 18-team superconference carries a scheduling format lacking repeat matchups, and the playoff tournament drops the three lowest-finishing teams. Combined with byes to the second and third round, it's virtually impossible to find teams with games spanning the distance between the end of the regular season and the start of the tournament.
Yet this week echoes the 1994-1995 season finish that doubled as Cathy Inglese's first season behind the bench of the BC program. The Eagles only won six games during that entire year, but the two Big East wins ahead of the season finale against Georgetown were against highly-regarded Seton Hall and Pittsburgh. An extended losing streak enveloped January and early February, but close calls against Villanova, Syracuse and Providence dotted results that sent BC into the No. 10 seed long before the last game at Georgetown.
In a weird parallel to this year's ACC tournament, the result had no bearing on either team's seed, but absorbing the loss to BC enabled the Hoyas to play inspired basketball throughout an 84-60 win in the tournament's first game. Exactly 30 years later, a 25-point loss to Syracuse clinched a rematch in this week's first game, though flipping the result in 1995 wouldn't have changed the opponent where beating Syracuse would've aligned the BC against Clemson in this year's tournament.
"We looked lethargic in our last game," said Bernabei-McNamee, "and I'm sure [Syracuse head coach Felicia Legette-Jack] would say that the first time we played them at our place, they looked lethargic without [Georgia] Woolley. Both of us at full strength should be a really fun game. It'll be a battle, and I think both their team and our team takes pride in being a really gritty team. When they came [to BC], I'm sure they would say that they didn't play very gritty, and when we went there, we didn't play very gritty."
The rivalry adds a layer to BC's overall surge through the latter stages of an up-and-down season. What began with blowout wins over local competition eventually backslid into multiple losing streaks, but the Eagles still finished the year within one game of a .500 finish to the regular season. The six conference wins built on the five-win campaigns of the last two years by earning enough wins to get into the ACC Tournament, and last Thursday's Senior Day victory cashed chips against the No. 8 seed in this year's tournament.
Three players finished with double-figure averages, and Teya Sidberry's late season breakout gave the Eagles 20-point performances in each of the last two games with an additional two-game, 20-point streak against Florida State and Clemson. Her six double-doubles bookended the early season ACC/SEC Challenge game against Arkansas with a 22-point, 12-board night against the Hokies, and her ability to get to the line while defending the rim for 17 blocks on the year added another sector to a game already teeming with T'Yana Todd's volume three-pointers and Dontavia Waggoner's unheralded per-game, 13-point average.
"Teya's shown that even in games where she didn't have the numbers, she always gives 100 percent," Bernabei-McNamee said. "She's shown that it's something that I know I can count on because she takes pride in playing her hardest, no matter what.
"But for the ACC Tournament," she added, "we need to be able to give ourselves an opportunity to win, and that means we need to have more than one or two players show up with consistency. We saw it against Virginia Tech; a handful of players showed up and were ready to play, and we lacked that [against Syracuse]. I hope there's no better time for everybody to be rejuvenated than during the tournament time, and there's no better place for us to be ready for an all-hands-on-deck, everything-we-have [performance]."
No. 12 BC tips off against No. 13 Syracuse in the first game of the 2025 ACC Women's Basketball Championship in Greensboro, North Carolina's First Horizon Coliseum. Game time is set ofr 1 p.m. and can be seen on national television via the ACC Network. Online streaming is also available through the network's family of Internet and mobile device apps for cable subscribers with access to the channel.
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