Boston College women’s basketball trailed by seven at the end of the first quarter of its game against No. 16 North Carolina on Monday night. Three quarters later, the Eagles had suffered a 51-point loss on their home court.
The Tar Heels (12–3, 1–1 Atlantic Coast) went on a tear after the opening period, relying on a 26-point second quarter and their smothering defense to run away with the game, beating BC 90–39.
The Eagles (4–11, 0–1) were unable to match UNC’s shooting and suffered their seventh-straight loss while putting up their lowest point total of the season. Since winning three-straight games earlier this season, BC has lost 10 of its last 11 matchups, including blowout losses to Quinnipiac and Virginia.
After suffering its first loss in conference play, BC will move on to face Duke on New Years Day.
“It doesn’t get any easier for us,” BC head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee said. “We’ve just got to figure out how to get better.”
The game was 20–13 at the end of the first quarter as BC’s offense sputtered, but its defense held up to keep things close. The second quarter was when everything unraveled for the Eagles, though.
UNC began to dominate offensively, putting together an 8–0 run in the first 2:44 of the period to go up 28–13. Athena Tomlinson broke the silence for the Eagles with a pullup jumper a minute later, but buckets were few and far between for BC.
UNC lived up to its reputation as a strong 3-point shooting team through the first two quarters, sinking more than 40 percent of their attempts from beyond the arc. Heading into Monday’s game, the Tar Heels were shooting 36.7 percent—the best in the ACC.
That first-half success faltered in the second half, though, and UNC ended the game with an 8-of-25 mark from deep.
Kaia Henderson was one bright point for BC, even as the Eagles trailed by 30 points halfway through the third quarter. Both teams scrambled for a loose ball, which BC ultimately recovered. Henderson got the ball, then took a few dribbles before sinking it from the elbow to make it a 55–27 game.
“I thought [Henderson] came in and gave us an offensive spark that we really needed,” Bernabei-McNamee said.
Henderson, an Ohio State transfer, finished with a team-best 10 points, her season-high.
“She came in and looked to shoot and had confidence in her ability to score,” Bernabei-McNamee said. “She was also very vocal in the timeouts and in the huddles, which was great to see as a point guard and as a senior, kind of a leader.”
Despite finding some success in transition, BC could never make the game competitive. The Tar Heels continued to dominate offensively, while the Eagles ended the game shooting 13-of-61 from the field.
“We weren’t making our shots—we got some open shots, we didn’t make them,” Bernabei-McNamee said. “Defensively, we gave up some in transition that we didn’t want to give up, and then they buried us a little bit on the inside as well.”
BC’s top 3-point shooters—Kayla Rolph and Erin Houpt—combined for just one three as the Eagles shot 4-for-26 from deep as a team.
The Tar Heels didn’t slow down, even after going into the fourth quarter up 69–31. They put up 21 fourth-quarter points en route to their 51-point victory—UNC’s first conference win of the season after losing to Louisville in its ACC opener earlier this month.
“You’ve got to be careful being too outcome-driven when you have an outcome like today’s game,” Bernabei-McNamee said. “You’ve got to figure out what we can do better, and be a little bit more neutral-minded. So we’ve got to embrace our underdog mentality, and we’ve got to get a lot more competitive when it comes to our fight.”