Four minutes into its game against No. 8 Louisville on Saturday, Boston College women’s basketball found itself down 10–0.
That was about as close as BC would get.
Louisville (19–3, 9–0 Atlantic Coast) dominated the Eagles (4–18, 0–9) from start to finish in an 85–56 trouncing, marking BC’s 14th straight loss.
Amirah Anderson led the Eagles with 16 points—a career-high for the freshman guard in ACC play—while Jocelyne Grier added 13 points of her own.
BC could barely blink before it was already down double digits. An Anderson jumper finally put the Eagles on the board, but the damage was done.
A Grier jumper would get the lead down to single digits, but a 3-of-14 shooting performance from BC in the opening quarter kept the Eagles from making any sizable dent in the lead. The quarter came to a close with Louisville leading 18–7.
Cardinal turnovers were the only reason the scoreboard was not more lopsided than it was. The Eagles secured six takeaways in the opening period, which they turned into five of their seven points.
BC came out strong on both sides of the ball to start the second. The Eagles got the score down to 22–12 just over two minutes into the period before the Cardinals took over.
A 3-pointer by Skylar Jones kicked off a 20–3 run for Louisville that stretched the lead to 42–15. That run was capped off by a 12–0 spurt.
A Grier layup finally stopped the momentum. Her bucket led to BC winning the last three minutes of the half, as it was able to outscore Louisville 6–2 to bring the halftime score to 44–21.
Height and depth were key to Louisville’s ability to grab the early advantage. The Cardinals outscored the Eagles 26–2 in the paint during the opening 20 minutes and had nine different players score, leading to a 16–5 lead in bench points.
The third quarter was similar to the second. Once again, the Eagles kept things competitive for the first few minutes, as the Cardinals’ lead hovered around 24 with 6:42 left to play.
From there, the Cardinals went on another extended run, as they outscored BC 28–5 over the rest of the quarter to take a 71–34 point lead into the fourth quarter.
The game’s other trends continued to hold, as 10 Louisville players scored and the Cardinals shot 72.7 percent from the field. In contrast, the Eagles had four scorers and could only manage a 28.6 shooting percentage.
Despite the large deficit, BC was not going to give up. The Eagles went on a 7–0 run during the fourth quarter and outscored the Cardinals 22–14 over the final 10 minutes.
But even holding Louisville without a field goal for over five minutes was not enough to make the game close. BC was able to avoid losing by 30, but an 85–56 final score told the story of the game.
