Maria Gakdeng set the program's single-season blocks record, Cam Swartz became the first ACC player since Notre Dame's Arike Ogunbowale in 2018-19 to score 20-plus points in six straight games and, most importantly, Boston College women's basketball got the job done.
The Eagles likely needed to win each of their final two road games to give themselves a good chance at their first NCAA Tournament bid since 2005-06. They did that—and in quite convincing fashion, too.
BC created a nine-point, first quarter cushion at Duke and never looked back, defeating the Blue Devils—also a bubble team—67-51. Then, three days later, the Eagles steamrolled a rebuilding Syracuse program in the Carrier Dome. BC staked itself to a 58-24 halftime lead and wound up 91-75 winners.
"I think when we're all playing together," head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee said Sunday at Syracuse, "I don't think there is much of a limit. I think we can be a really, really good ACC team and go on to the NCAA Tournament and make some noise there."
BC (19-10, 10-8 ACC) couldn't have gotten off to a better start against the Orange (11-17, 4-14). The Eagles made eight of their first 10 shots, including all five of their 3-point attempts. To put that in perspective, they made just five triples in the entire Duke game.
At the end of the first quarter, BC had a 28-14 lead, which ballooned to a 31-point advantage at one point in the second frame. The Eagles were paced offensively by Swartz (20 points), Taylor Soule (16 points) and Gakdeng (14 points).
Swartz's second 3-pointer put her over the 1,000-point mark. She's the third Eagle to hit that milestone this season, joining Soule and Makayla Dickens.
"Having those three people do it in one year is pretty amazing and not really common," Swartz said. "And it just shows how much we all contribute."
Seven straight makes at the start of the third quarter stretched the Eagles' lead to 62-26. With the game well in hand, Bernabei-McNamee got creative with her rotations.
In the second half, sophomore guard Kaylah Ivey—a key bench piece for BC down the stretch of this season—played 11 minutes. Junior Jaelyn Batts got five minutes while sophomore JoJo Lacey and freshman Andrea Daley each earned eight minutes.
But that group combined for five of BC's 14 second-half turnovers—off which Syracuse scored 19 points—and Lacey was the only player of the bunch to score more than one point. She finished with seven points on 3-of-5 shooting.
Bernabei-McNamee was disappointed by the way her second unit played. The Orange even got within 11 points of BC during the fourth quarter.
They were piloted by the backcourt pairing of Teisha Hyman and Chrislyn Carr, who combined for 32 points in the back half of play.
Ultimately, though, consecutive layups from Soule, Swartz and Dickens secured the Eagles' first ACC season sweep of Syracuse.
It followed up their third-best win of the season, simple RPI-wise. BC had Duke's number from the start. Bernabei-McNamee's squad showed out against a Blue Devils (16-12, 7-11) team that entered Thursday in the "last four byes" category of ESPN's latest NCAA Tournament projection.
In the first of two straight double-digit performances, Gakdeng got the ball rolling with back-to-back hook shots in the early going. Swartz, who had a game-high 21 points, gave the Eagles their first lead with a mid-range jumper.
Swartz also helped cap a 7-0 run to end the opening quarter by notching a steal and pushing the ball up the court. Once there, Ally VanTimmeren swung a pass to Dickens, who cashed in from beyond the arc, as part of her 16 points off the bench.
Marnelle Garraud dialed up a pair of bounce passes to feed Swartz and Dickens on backdoor cuts for a couple of layups that stretched BC's lead to 26-14 in the second quarter. Before the game could get away from the Blue Devils, however, Shayeann Day-Wilson orchestrated a 6-0 Duke run.
The freshman guard did it on both ends, even prying the ball away from Garraud and dribbling to the other end for a breakaway layup.
Following a Swartz 3-pointer, BC took a 31-23 lead into intermission. The Eagles blossomed that into a 20-point advantage in the second quarter. A trio of 3-pointers from Swartz, Dickens and Ivey were the backbone for a 13-0 Eagles surge.
What saved Duke was an Elizabeth Balogun and-one and a layup from Onome Akinbode-James. Those buckets were the start of a 13-2 Blue Devils run that pulled them within nine points of BC. The stretch culminated in a Celeste Taylor triple.
But, just as she did at the start of the game, Gakdeng put the Eagles' offense in motion: first down low, then with a jumper from the free throw line. A Swartz old-fashioned 3-point play and another Gakdeng layup propped BC up, 61-43.
The Eagles maintained a sizable lead the rest of the way and iced the game at the charity stripe.
With the two road wins, BC moved to 6-7 away from Conte Forum this year. It was a critical swing for the Eagles, who are now the eighth seed in the ACC Tournament.
"I'm excited to get back to school for a hot sec. I'm sick and tired of wearing the same track suit for five days straight," Soule joked. "Some new clothes will definitely be nice. But it's always good to get out on the road and compete and see where we match up."
BC ranks 47th in simple RPI, according to HerHoopStats. The Eagles are the second-to-last team in in Charlie Creme's latest bracketology. That means that, if the season ended Monday, the Eagles would be projected to play Northwestern for a 12 seed in the field of 64.
One victory in the conference tournament, and the committee will have a hard time keeping a 20-win BC team out of the competition.
"I'm anxious to get to this ACC Tournament and see what we can do," Bernabei-McNamee said.