This afternoon the Boston College women’s basketball team closed out a season-opening 3 game home stand with a third straight victory, defeating Northeastern 92-46. Here are some key takeaways from today’s easy victory…
The team is settling down: The Eagles got off to slower starts in their first 2 games of the season before ultimately coming back for strong wins. Today, however, BC dominated from the start. It’s good to see the Eags’ confidence progressing as they get ready to face teams that they can’t risk slow starts against.
BC is off to their strongest start in years: The last time BC started a season 3-0 was in 2020-21, when the team won 4 straight before losing in the ACC opener. (Unfortunately the team would go just 7-12 overall that year.) The past 2 seasons BC has lost to Harvard in game 2 of the season, and in 2021-22 the Eagles fell to BU in their third game of the year. It’s promising to see BC handling non-conference opponents easily so far, but the next game will be a big test — the Eagles head to Harvard on Thursday night in hopes of breaking a 2 year early season losing streak to the Crimson.
The Eagles are making improvements as they go: In previous seasons, one concern was that prevalent issue weren’t improving as the season progressed. Tonight, however, we saw one big improvement from last game: fouling. The Eagles got into foul trouble early against Sacred Heart, but today they played their usual aggressive defense without making many fouls at all — and Northeastern was certainly trying to draw fouls. The Huskies attempted just 7 free throws in the game, while BC earned 24 free throw chances.
BC can win without 3s: The Eagles made fewer 3s than usual today (5), but still came away with a huge lead. And even before they started making those 3s, the Eags had built a lead up that was going to be difficult for Northeastern to overcome. Shots from behind the arc will still be a major factor when BC is facing top teams, but today showed that the Eags can take a lead without those shots. Plus, when they do need 3s, there are plenty of players who can make them: 5 different players made BC’s 5 3s today. (The Eagles do still need to work on limiting opponent 3 point chances though – the Huskies were able to attempt 19 shots from behind the arc.)
Individual Players: The usual suspects had solid games today, but we also got to see some good stuff from freshmen and sophomores, which is who we’ll focus on here…
- Athena Tomlinson is fast. Sometimes her speed still causes her to get a little bit ahead of herself, but it’s clear that she’s going to be able to develop into a strong playmaker as she gets more comfortable with the college game.
- Freshman Déborah Mukeba uses her body well. She’s able to both force her way into shooting position and to draw fouls because of how she maneuvers herself under the net. Her shot still needs a little bit of work, but once she’s worked with the coaches enough to adjust to the pace of the college game, she could be a real asset off the bench. Unfortunately, she did head to the locker room with an injury late in today’s game, but hopefully she’s able to get back on the court before long.
- As I’ve said every week, it’s difficult to believe that Tatum Greene is only a freshman. She plays with a real confidence, and notched 6 boards and 14 points today. However, after going 4-for-4 from the charity stripe against Sacred Heart, she made just 4 of 8 free throws today – so that may be the one area of her game that could use a little polishing.
- Nene Ndiaye stuck out to me last year as a player with real potential, and I felt that today too. She had 9 points and 3 rebounds today, and I’d love to see her coming off the bench more frequently so that she can continue to improve her play with in-game experience.
Next up, BC will head to Harvard for the Eagles’ first away game of the season.