Eagles Approaching WNIT Like It's the NCAA Tournament
Andy Backstrom (@andybackstrom)
Publisher
ESPN contacted Boston College women's basketball and told fourth-year head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee and her team to be ready for Selection Sunday.
The Eagles gathered to hear their name called for what would have been the program's first NCAA Tournament bid since 2006.
And closure for a group of five seniors that were robbed of the same opportunity two years prior when the pandemic canceled March Madness.
Except, as is often the case with closure, it didn't come in the form BC was expecting.
"We all were sitting in that room with that buzz and that excitement, like, 'When's our name going to be called? When's our name going to be called?'," Bernabei-McNamee recounted Monday morning.
The Eagles' name was, in fact, never called. Despite finishing with 10 ACC wins, including a top-25 victory over Notre Dame, and ranking 48th in NET, BC was left on the wrong side of the bubble.
"That's true, true heartbreak and disappointment when you work as hard as our team has worked," Bernabei-McNamee said.
Still, this season, which saw BC boast the ACC's most improved player (Cam Swartz), All-ACC first (Swartz) and second-team (Taylor Soule) selections as well as a member of the conference's All-Freshman Team (Maria Gakdeng), remains significant.
The Eagles nabbed a top seed in the WNIT, meaning they are set to play in their first postseason tournament since 2010-11.
Bernabei-McNamee made it clear that the NCAA Tournament was where "our hearts wanted us to be" but that "life happens" and that, after Sunday night's emotional roller coaster, she, her staff and her team hit the reset button.
"We just came out of practice, and it was probably one of our best practices of the year," she said Monday. "They went all out. We said we're in championship season mode. Now, we're going to approach this WNIT, just like it was the NCAA Championship."
Bernabei-McNamee pointed out that the WNIT is "no joke." Three of the last four WNIT champions are set to host first and second round NCAA Tournament games this season.
The Eagles aren't taking postseason play for granted, especially because they are hosting their WNIT opener against Maine Thursday night.
"I hope our fan base sees this as an opportunity to get out and support us," Bernabei-McNamee said. "I want us to prove that Boston College has its fans, too. We do. And and we can play with the best of them. But we've got to prove it now."
BC didn't take care of business in the ACC Tournament. The Eagles came in as the eighth seed and, following a first-round bye, fell to fellow bubble team Florida State. The Seminoles, a mainstay in the NCAA Tournament, ended up grabbing a spot in the First Four.
"I think we learned that that was our play-in game," Bernabei-McNamee said. "And if we would have won it, we would have been in the NCAA Tournament. That stinks, but we did not play well. We didn't shoot the ball well. I would never say that my team didn't play hard. I thought we played hard in that game. It was just not our night."
Since, the Eagles have been focused on shoring up the "little things" offensively. That means limiting turnovers, which have been a problem all year, better ball movement and, of course, improved shot making.
BC will get its first shot at redemption against a Black Bears team that ranks 111th nationally in opponent field goal percentage.
On the other end of the floor, Maine runs a Princeton-style offense with hard backdoor cuts and a tendency to shoot from beyond the arc. Triples account for 31.4% of the Black Bears' points, which is 91st in the country, according to HerHoopStats.
The Eagles don't have the opportunity to make an NCAA Tournament run this year.
But they do have a chance at clearing through their region of the WNIT.
And maybe even eclipsing the 23-win mark—something BC has only done twice since the turn of the century.
