Eagles Collapse at Columbia, Lose in WNIT Sweet Sixteen
Andy Backstrom (@andybackstrom)
Publisher
Boston College women's basketball shot 6-of-29 from the floor in the second half Thursday night at Columbia in the third round of WNIT competition.
The same Eagles team that racked up 94 points in a second-round win over Quinnipiac three days earlier was sloppy with ball handling and taking possessions late into the shot clock. It was uncharacteristic of a BC squad that ranked 48th nationally in pace this season, according to HerHoopStats.
The Eagles' offensive struggles led to bad defense on the other end—and vice versa. It was the recipe for disaster. The kind that allowed Columbia to claw back from a 17-point second-half deficit—despite finishing 0-of-20 from deep—beat BC, 54-51, for the second time in program history and advance to the WNIT Elite Eight.
"Maybe the pressure of wanting to win so bad," Eagles head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee said when trying to explain her team's spiral. "Instead of to win, you start to play not to lose, and it gets everybody a little tighter because I've never seen us take that much time on the offensive end before."
She continued: "But we just, we seemed just to—I don't know. We weren't playing that aggressive, intense style that we like to do, and I just think that might have been because we wanted it so bad."
It was a heartbreaking defeat for a group of Eagles that was trying to prove it belonged in the NCAA Tournament. Judging by the way they played in the first quarter, it appeared as if they were well on their way to doing just that.
BC (21-12, 10-8 ACC) staked itself to a 21-11 lead in a packed Levien Gymnasium. Cam Swartz got the Eagles going with a 3-pointer. She led BC with 24 points. Dontavia Waggoner chipped in three layups off the bench in the opening frame. It the start of her near double-double, in which she piled up nine points and 11 rebounds.
Columbia (25-6, 12-2 Ivy), on the other hand, struggled to do much of anything on the offensive end. It got worse for the Lions in the second quarter when they mustered just seven points. They rounded out the half shooting 21.9% from the field, including 0-of-14 from deep. Columbia's leading scorer Abbey Hsu, a deadly 3-point marksman, missed all five of her field goal attempts in the opening two quarters and was held to one point.
BC star Taylor Soule made things happen, even without stellar shot making. The senior forward was a mere 3-of-12 in the first half, however, she hounded the glass for five offensive rebounds. And she was a big reason why the Eagles had 11 second-chance points by the time intermission rolled around.
BC boasted a 33-18 halftime lead. The rest of the way, though, it scored a meager 18 points—three fewer than it posted in the first quarter alone.
Columbia outscored the Eagles, 17-8, in the third period. The Lions held BC—which committed eight turnovers in the frame—to 3-of-13 shooting. The Eagles missed their first four shots of the quarter, and, although they did use an 8-0 run to restore their double-digit lead, Columbia made up lost ground with a 7-0 spurt.
The Lions were on their A-game defensively. And they were penetrating on the other end. Kaitlyn Davis and Jaida Patrick, who combined for 36 points, were the architects of the comeback. The quarter-ending surge was kickstarted by Davis, who turned a steal into two points. Then Patrick added a layup. Before the end of the period, Davis cashed in on a Kitty Henderson pass to make it a 41-35 game.
"Almost every time out, we were sitting there saying, 'Alright, that was their run. Now, we're going to get our run and move on to the next play,'" Bernabei-McNamee said. "But the runs never came back to us."
The fourth quarter was a continuation of the third. Columbia outscored BC, 19-10, in the final frame. The Lions scored nine fastbreak points and maintained a 12-4 advantage over the Eagles in the paint, despite their size disadvantage.
Henderson tied the game at 43-43 with a pair of free throws. At first, BC responded, courtesy of layups from its two-best players: Swartz and Soule.
But, once again, Columbia battled back. Hsu used a crossover to get by Soule and then drew an Ally VanTimmeren foul. She hit both of her free throws. Not too long after that, Patrick kept the Lions within one point of their ACC foe. In the process, the energy continued to mount in Levien Gymnasium.
"It was definitely a loud gym," Bernabei-McNamee said. "Again, Columbia brought the fans, and they definitely had that sixth man. I know half the time—that's why I'm a little horse—they could hardly hear us when we were screaming what we needed to do."
With under a minute left, Columbia trapped Swartz on the ensuing possession. Henderson forced a tie-up, and the Lions had the possession arrow.
That's when Davis threaded a needle in the paint for Patrick, who scored what would be the game-winning layup.
Soule attacked the basket on the other end but came up empty with no whistle. After a pair of Henderson free throws, BC had one last chance. The Eagles had 4.3 seconds to go the full length of the court. Kaylah Ivey flung a pass up to Swartz, who got off a potential game-tying 3-pointer just in time.
But the ACC's most improved player couldn't get it to fall.
Columbia's fans rushed the court and celebrated with a Lions team that is headed to its WNIT regional final. BC, meanwhile, is headed home with disappointment.
And a feeling of "what could have been" for a senior class who helped Bernabei-McNamee rescue the program from the ACC's cellar yet couldn't perform consistently enough to routinely get the job done on the biggest stage.
Nevertheless, that group's impact will always be remembered in Chestnut Hill.
"When you think of the Boston College program, you think of that senior class," Bernabei-McNamee said.
