Turnovers have been Boston College women’s basketball’s kryptonite since the beginning of the 2021–22 season. Averaging 19.1 turnovers per game, maintaining possession has proved to be a struggle for the Eagles all season.
“Today we had 16 turnovers, and to some that’s still a lot of turnovers, but for us that has been something we have been trying to cut down on all year,” Taylor Soule said after the Eagles’ win over Miami Sunday. “To know that we can limit our turnovers will be really important in a game like Georgia Tech.”
Despite Soule’s optimism, No.14 Georgia Tech (16–4, 7–2 Atlantic Coast) shut down the Eagles’ offense and profited off turnovers to walk away with a 68–49 victory on Thursday. After defeating then-No. 19 Notre Dame on Jan. 20, a win for BC (14–6, 5–4) would have been the first time the Eagles won two consecutive ranked games since the 2009–10 season.
Just shy of its total against Miami, BC allowed 15 turnovers, but the Yellow Jackets capitalized on them.
“In the second half, we only had five turnovers,” head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee said in her postgame press conference. “The problem is when we did turn over the ball in this game, they were live-ball turnovers, which, for them, translated to 16 points off our turnovers.”
BC’s 15 turnovers not only changed the momentum of the game but allowed the Yellow Jackets to score easy points with no reciprocation. BC logged nine points off turnovers.
Georgia Tech—which ranks first in the nation in defense—held a BC squad that averages 73.7 points per game to 49 and limited the Eagles’ shooting percentage from the field to 30.4 percent.
“We kind of let them kind of bully us into rough shots or forced shots,” Bernabei-McNamee said. “We shot the ball pretty poorly, and we didn’t make up for it with our offensive rebounding. Us only getting eight offensive boards with how poorly we shot the ball is kind of unacceptable in my opinion.”
While the team shot 17-of-56, Cameron Swartz, Soule, and Marnelle Garraud each reached double digits, scoring 14, 11, and 10 points respectively.
In addition to their contributions on the scoreboard, Soule and Garraud kept the team’s energy up and continued to fight to the very last seconds of the game, Bernabei-McNamee said.
“I can really count on Taylor Soule to go 100 percent, 100 percent of the time regardless of the score, regardless of what’s going on,” Bernabei-McNamee said. “Marnelle, the same thing. She gets after it, she’s going to defend. And then I think that trickles down to the rest of the team.”
Feature Image by Nicole Wei / Heights Staff
