With Two Games Left, BC Projected as Last Team in: 'We Have to Go Dancing'
Andy Backstrom (@andybackstrom)
Publisher
Boston College women's basketball was supposed to go dancing in 2020. Something the program has still yet to do since 2005-06.
It would have been a storybook ending for a senior class that was the bridge between Erik Johnson and Joanna Bernabei-McNamee—a group that won a combined three ACC games in their first three years at BC before leading the Eagles to their first 20-win season since 2010-11.
BC logged a program-record-breaking 11 ACC wins and made a run to the conference tournament semifinals in 2019-20. Instead of hearing its name called on Selection Monday, however, the team was stuck on Zoom like every other college student at the start of a confusing, stressful and traumatic pandemic.
The following season—during which BC played in front of no home fans because of COVID-19 protocols—begged the question of if the previous year's campaign was a fluke.
The Eagles returned four starters, including the ACC's Most Improved Player Taylor Soule, yet stumbled out of the gates in league play and never recovered, juggling COVID-19 postponements and absences while finishing 7-12, including a meager 2-11 in ACC competition.
"I think last year was an absolute debacle for us," Bernabei-McNamee said during preseason media day this year. "Emotionally, physically. Never really being able to put a full team on the court and show what we're made of and not having a summer to workout."
She continued: "Not to make excuses, but I don't think last year was an indicative year of who we are."
The fourth-year Eagles head coach was right.
With two regular season games remaining, BC is currently the "last team in" in Charlie Creme's latest ESPN bracketology projection. As of now, Creme has the Eagles (17-10, 8-8 ACC) facing DePaul for a spot in the field of 64 as a 12 seed. If they won that game, they'd be projected to play Iowa in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.
The matchups will surely change, but, what's significant, is the Eagles' placement.
BC likely needs to beat Duke and Syracuse on the road to secure a spot in the dance. HerHoopStats gives the Eagles a 33% chance of taking down the Blue Devils, also a bubble team (one of Creme's "last four byes"), and a 58% chance of defeating a rebuilding Syracuse program.
Winning one of those two games would probably require BC to claim a pair of victories in the ACC Tournament, making another run to the conference tournament semifinals.
The Eagles' best wins this season have come against a ranked Notre Dame squad, a now-22-win UMass team and a Miami unit that's on the bubble with BC. Bernabei-McNamee's team blew a 13-point, fourth-quarter lead to then-No. 25 North Carolina, though, and lost in overtime to No. 5 North Carolina State.
The Eagles' worst losses are the problem. During a relatively weak non-conference slate, BC dropped games to Boston University and VCU, which rank 142nd and 65th, respectively, in simple RPI, according to HerHoopStats. They also lost a critical game last week to Florida State, which is actually lower than VCU right now (87th) in simple RPI.
A victory over Duke (52nd in simple RPI) would be BC's third-best win of the season. In other words, the Eagles need it.
The pressure is on, perhaps even more so than it was two years ago. This BC team has five seniors, four of whom are major contributors. Taylor Soule and Cam Swartz make up one of the most lethal scoring combos in the ACC. And Marnelle Garraud and Makayla Dickens have been instrumental in BC's backcourt for years.
A few of them could come back next year, but the group won't look the same in 2022-23. This is their last shot to make right on a heartbreaking end of 2019-20.
Soule knows that.
"We have to go dancing,” she said after BC's Senior Day win against Wake Forest. “It’s not even a question of if.
"We have to do it."
