Five turnovers to zero field goals is never an ideal stat for a basketball team. No. 11-seed Boston College women’s basketball went down 11–0 early to No. 5-seed North Carolina on Thursday thanks to that rather unfavorable ratio.
“For some reason we always get off to slow starts, I don’t know, that’s kind of been a thing that we’ve been trying to fix this year, but it happened again today,” Kaylah Ivey said. “But we knew we were never out of it, like, it was the first four minutes of the game.”
Despite that rough start, maybe it gave the Eagles some confidence that they had come back from a 19-point deficit the day before to beat Syracuse in the first round of the ACC tournament.
It certainly looked like the Eagles had confidence on their side as they came back and ended up leading the Tar Heels by as many as nine points in the fourth quarter.
In the second round of the conference tournament, however, BC could not emulate its first-round win, as the Eagles (16–17, 6–12 Atlantic Coast) fell 78–71 to UNC (26–6, 13–5) to end their season with a gut-wrenching loss.
BC head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee seemed teary-eyed as she sat down in the post-game press conference.
“It’s a very sad locker room,” Bernabei-McNamee said. “I think when you have seniors that wanted more, and we didn’t achieve what we set out to do this year, it kind of hits them. But I think what’s hitting us harder right now is knowing that this group is done being together.”
UNC’s smothering defense shut down BC for the first 4:43 of play, keeping the Eagles scoreless. Then, Tatum Greene scored BC’s first points of the game with a catch-and-shoot 3-pointer.
“I thought she played very confident, and that’s something that Tatum has been working on all year—finding that confidence,” Berbanei-McNamee said.
From there, the Eagles caught fire.
“We started protecting the ball more, talking more on defense, and just playing our style of basketball,” Ivey said. “It kind of flowed throughout the rest of the game, until like, the last four minutes.”
Before the quarter was over, Greene hit two more threes and Kaylah Ivey put in one of her own, sending BC into the second quarter down 18–14. BC’s shooting went cold in the second quarter as the Eagles started the quarter 0–6 from behind the arc and headed into the half down 36–30.
But once again, a comeback effort from BC struck in the third quarter. The game was tied 54–54 at the end of the frame, thanks in large part to Greene.
Greene, who was averaging about four points per game entering Thursday’s matchup, scored 18 points in her outing, including a perfect 4-of-4 performance from the 3-point line.
Ivey was also strong from long-range, making five of her 10 attempts to help BC to 50 percent shooting from three.
The Eagles’ 3-point shooting came in clutch once again in the fourth quarter, as three consecutive threes from Kaylah Ivey and Teya Sidberry put the Eagles up nine points. It seemed as though BC was in control. That wasn’t how the game went after that, though. Things quickly spun out of control on the Eagles’ part, as all of the momentum went flying toward the Tar Heels.
“The first four minutes and the last four minutes just killed us in the game,” Ivey said.
Ivey’s three with 8:19 left to play put the Eagles up 63–54. But for a three minute span after that, the Eagles could not score, and UNC brought the game back within two. Ivey sank another three at the 5:19 mark, but a second-chance bucket on the other end once again chipped away at BC’s lead. With 5:02 remaining, BC led 66–63.
After Ivey’s make, BC didn’t score again until there was 1:30 remaining, when Dontavia Waggoner hit free throws. The Tar Heels finished the game on a 15–5 scoring run.
An and-1 bucket off a BC turnover put UNC up 68–66—a lead that lasted through the end of the game. Two more fast-break layups and another make off yet another BC turnover did not help the Eagles’ case. UNC ended the game with 25 points off BC turnovers.
A 12-for-26 performance from three wasn’t enough for BC. Maybe that was because of the Eagles’ 18 turnovers, or maybe BC’s tendency to dig early holes might have caught up to them.
At the end of the game, it was evident that BC was outmatched and overwhelmed. The Eagles ended their season with what could have been a huge upset, but instead became a waste of a comeback.
“I know that we have some basketball regrets throughout the season, and I hope that the players that are going to stay with Boston College and play for us are gonna look at this game and kind of keep that,” Bernabei-Mcnamee said. “Let this fire them up in the weight room, and what we do at conditioning, and what they do in their individual workouts,”
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