Boston College women’s basketball has lost six of its last eight games, including a 50-point blowout loss to Notre Dame and a 28-point beatdown suffered at the hands of Louisville. Despite a few crushing losses during their toughest stretch of ACC play, though, the Eagles did not flinch on Sunday afternoon, even when facing a ranked opponent in No. 21 Syracuse.
The Eagles (11–13, 3–8 Atlantic Coast), led by Teya Sidberry’s career-high 23 points, put up a fight from the start, out rebounding and putting up 13 more bench points than Syracuse. BC’s efforts came up short, though, as they fell to the Orange (18–4, 8–3) 75–63 in Conte Forum, marking BC’s fifth-straight loss.
“I think we just got to continue playing and not get deterred right now because we didn’t win the game,” BC head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee said.
The Eagles, despite keeping the game close for the 40 minutes, fell off at the end due in part to the discrepancy in made free throws. BC shot 63.6 percent from the free throw line, picking up just seven points. Syracuse, though, thrived from the line late in the game, missing only one of their 23 attempts.
Free throws, despite being important down the stretch, were not the deciding factor in Sunday’s game. The decider was Syracuse’s Dyaisha Fair. The graduate student put up 38 points, shooting 5-11 from the 3-point line while managing to dominate the Eagles in the paint as well.
“When a kid is in the zone, it’s sometimes hard to break them out of it,” Bernabei-McNamee said. “[Fair] just had a phenomenal game.”
Fair’s dominance kept Syracuse ahead for the majority of the game. The Eagles responded to her overwhelming consistency in spurts, though, primarily due to JoJo Lacey’s performance. Lacey put up a season-high 21 points in the contest, which marked her second game back in BC’s lineup following a seven-game hiatus due to personal reasons.
“It was really nice to have her back,” Bernabei-McNamee said. “And I think as for her, that’s a big step in the right direction. With just grieving and getting through the tough times she’s having … I think it’s also her teammates are kind of pumping her up and making sure that she can be present, and I was really proud.”
Lacey sank a jumper at the beginning of the second quarter to cut BC’s previous 18–11 deficit to five. Seconds later, she grabbed a steal on the other end and worked some magic in transition, going coast to coast for a layup. Her spark started the Eagles on an 8–0 run that gave them a 19–18 lead with 5:26 remaining in the first half.
“On both ends of the court, you can feel it when you’re playing with her, like the energy she brought,” Sidberry said of Lacey’s performance.
Two offensive fouls on the Orange with around four minutes left in the second quarter sent the Eagles coasting to a 27–22 lead, secured by a Lacey 3-pointer with 2:19 remaining.
But the No. 21 team in the nation was not ready to back down. Fair picked up five more points in the span of 2:07, sending the Orange into the locker room within one point, trailing 31–30 at the half.
Sidberry’s performance in the paint kept the Eagles’ lead alive in the second half. A short block-to-block dish from Waggoner off of a spin move into the paint gave Sidberry the ball in prime position, which she took advantage of for an easy layup with 3:39 to go in the third quarter to make it 42–36.
“That was like an emphasis—just to be grittier and, you know, more intentional with sealing and posting up,” Sidberry said.
Less than 30 seconds later, Sidberry got another pass from Waggoner, took one dribble toward the middle of the paint, and floated the ball over her defender to extend the Eagles’ lead to six, their largest of the game.
“[Waggoner] is great from the high post area, so people close out on her because she’s so, like, efficient from there, and then it’s an easy drop,” Sidberry said.
But as the clock ticked down, the Eagles began to slow down on both ends of the court.
“Credit to Syracuse—they changed up their defenses a little bit and sometimes when you’re on the court, they thought it was one thing and they would do something differently,” Bernabei-McNamee said of her players responding to Syracuse’s defensive sets.
Syracuse started a 16–10 run starting at the beginning of the fourth quarter, which was capped off at the 3:40 mark when Fair made her fifth 3-pointer of the game, putting the Orange up by six points, 65–59.
A pair of layups by Lacey and Sidberry in the last three minutes were not enough to bring BC back into the game, and eight made free throws, four by Fair, lifted the Orange over the hump for good and gave them a win.
“You know, that’s what good defenses do, right? I think it’s better to work to get a great shot than, kind of throw up a bad one,” Bernabei-McNamee said.
