Boston College women’s basketball entered its Thursday night matchup against Pittsburgh with a little bit of swagger in its step. Coming off a 29-point win over Clemson just four days prior, the Eagles took to the hardwood looking primed to show the ice-cold Panthers what they were made of.
Ten minutes later, they were down by 23.
“Yeah, we were really bad,” BC head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee said about her team’s first-quarter performance. “I mean, just bad on both ends.”
In what was their worst-shooting quarter of the entire season to date, the Eagles (13–12, 4–8 Atlantic Coast) went 1-of-12 from the field, only managing to put up 10 points compared to the Panthers’ (10–14, 2–9) 33.
“We didn’t have that intestinal fortitude to make up for the fact that we weren’t shooting the ball well,” Bernabei-McNamee said.
From the opening tip-off, Pitt controlled the pace of play on both sides of the ball. Teya Sidberry, who was coming off 48 total points in her last two contests, was almost completely shut down on the offensive end. She finished the game with eight points on 2-of-8 shooting.
Pitt dominated defensively and turned BC turnovers into offense, scoring 15 points off of BC’s 10 first-half turnovers.
But the Panthers also put on an offensive masterclass—they shot 79 percent from the floor in the first quarter alone.
Khadija Faye, the conference’s sixth-leading scorer, backed her potential All-ACC campaign in the first half, scoring 15 points on 5-of-6 shooting while also snagging five boards.
Pitt entered halftime with a 50–28 lead—their largest first-half winning margin against an ACC opponent this season.
BC finally showed some signs of life in the third quarter. T’yana Todd sank the team’s first three of the entire game three minutes into the second half.
Meanwhile, Pitt’s masterful shooting performance suddenly turned south. Beginning at the 8:06 mark, the Panthers went more than seven minutes not managing to drain a single field goal. But for the Eagles, it was hard to be happy about the Panthers’ sudden woes from the floor, as they were only able to cut the deficit down to 12 during that stretch.
“Hard to say I was happy with anything today,” Bernabei-McNamee said.
Despite much improved second-half shooting, BC was never able to recover from its early struggles and was eventually closed out 79–66.
Todd led the Eagles’ scoring effort, finishing with 14 points on 2-of-5 shooting from deep.
“We just got to get our act together and recover from this,” said Bernabei-McNamee. “Move forward, and hopefully play a lot better at home.”
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