Boston College Women’s Basketball Season Ends With a Loss to UNC

Following a 69-64 loss to UNC in the first round of the ACC Tournament this afternoon, Boston College WBB’s season is over. The Eagles end the year with a 7-23 overall record, the team’s worst since 1994-95 when they won only 6 games. The Eagles were hurt by their 20 turnovers today, and they led the game for only 28 seconds during the entire match. BC was led by Taylor Ortlepp’s 23 points (including 7 3-pointers). Milan Bolden-Morris led the team with 7 rebounds and put up a respectable 10 points.

There isn’t much to say about this team that we at BCI haven’t already said this year. There are talented players on this squad - rookie Milan Bolden-Morris shows great promise and sophomores Taylor Ortlepp and Georgia Pineau have made massive strides this season. (One has to hope that they all stay with the team, unlike last season’s star, Mariella Fasoula, who now plays at Vanderbilt.)

But despite a few very talented players, the Eagles don’t seem to be making any progress. Turnovers have been a problem season after season - this is a basic basketball skill and it is concerning that the coaching staff hasn’t been able to figure out how to fix the issue. Rebounding and shooting accuracy have been inconsistent - sometimes the Eagles do great, but sometimes they are vastly out-rebound and/or are shooting multiple airballs per game.

Recruiting has also been inconsistent for BC. There are talented ladies on the roster, but the team has almost no bench depth. This certainly isn’t an attack on any of the bench players, who are working hard, but BC used to be able to recruit to have a much deeper squad. A good academic school in Boston with a history of having a decent WBB team should not be having this much trouble winning over potential players.

When you look at the way this team plays, particularly with Ortlepp’s dominance over the last month, it seems that most of the issues stem from the coaching staff. I’ve heard nothing but lovely things about the BC WBB coaches, but year after year we’ve seen the same problems: mediocre recruiting and a lack of improvement in turnovers and overall consistency. The players deserve better than the outcomes they have been seeing over the past 7 seasons (yes, it has been 7 seasons since this team had a winning record). Martin Jarmond needs to take a good, long look at this program because something needs to change.