ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 3, 2021

Joanna Bernabei-McNamee

Boston College Eagles

Postgame Press Conference

Boston College 67, Pitt 56

Q. Coach, if you could give us a brief opening statement on the victory and then we'll go to questions.

JOANNA BERNABEI-MCNAMEE: Yeah, this is, what, survive and advance. That's what they say about this time of year we're in. With that being said, ugly survive is better than not surviving, so I thought it was pretty much an ugly game.

Thank goodness Cameron Swartz came up big time after time in our offense. And I thought that T Soule had a pretty big break where she was in some foul trouble but then when she got in you felt her presence instantly on the rebounding end. I told them right there you wouldn't think it's a team sport, so T Soule maybe not getting the scoring done, people stepped up around her.

I'm proud of the team. We've gone through some adversity this year, so them getting a win here today I think is a great job, and now we've got to focus and be ready for tomorrow.

Q. Cam's 33 points did tie a school record for ACC Tournament game.

JOANNA BERNABEI-MCNAMEE: Wow. That's exciting.

Q. I wanted to touch upon Cameron Swartz, her big performance. How big of a momentum shift maybe is that for your team moving forward knowing that your players are showing up when it matters most?

JOANNA BERNABEI-MCNAMEE: Huge. As a coach this time of year all you can really pray for is consistency. You need players to step up, play hard. They've got to rebound, they've got to do the job.

But then if you can have offensive consistency, that's how you take games from people. I was really proud of Cam. Her last couple games she's been so consistent, and moving forward that's what we've got to continue to see from her.

But yeah, for her she just played with that fire in her eyes, because I don't know if you guys realize, but on the defensive end we ended up putting her on Everett, so she also had to be a defensive stopper. So she really was a two-way player that had to do a lot of things in today's game.

Q. I noticed on the defensive assignment, but 22 turnovers translates to 23-odd points against Pitt. Was there something that Pitt was doing that was tipping their hand for you to get those turnovers? And I know so much of your style is fast break and running in transition; how were you able to enforce that and impose that as the game went on?

JOANNA BERNABEI-MCNAMEE: Yeah, I think honestly as the game went on, especially in the fourth quarter, it was almost the opposite. We were trying to tell our team, Hey, it's a game of possessions. But I do think they're so conditioned to play that up-tempo style that we took some shots where I'm sure you guys were like, Why are they taking that quick shot?

So we did a little bit of that in the game. But I do think that we probably just took advantage of Pitt's youth at times on the defensive end, and I liked the way we scrambled and we had that fight in us on the defensive end.

Now, on the offensive end you can flip that and say the same. I thought we had crazy turnovers and we lengthened our passes too much instead of making the shorter obvious pass. That's something that I hope we got out of our system, because we can't do that against Syracuse.

Q. You have a group of five juniors on this team. What does having that type of experience, what kind of confidence does that give you going into postseason play?

JOANNA BERNABEI-MCNAMEE: Yeah, I think from our play down here last year, I do think the juniors have that confidence because they've been here before, and I think our younger players can kind of feed off of that, like, patience and poise that your five juniors in our case should really have. Like, Hey, this is tournament time, but we've been here. We won here last year, so we really have to do what it takes to win.

And that's always for our team controlling everything that we can control, and that's something in this game I don't think we did a great job on the boards. We did an okay job. That's something that I know that we'll take and we have to move forward for tomorrow to do a better job on the boards.

Q. Coming off your last game against Syracuse, how can you use what you learned in that game to prepare for tomorrow?

JOANNA BERNABEI-MCNAMEE: Yeah, I think we can really take that we have to play big. Like I think our last meeting with Syracuse we played a little small. We looked small. We didn't take care of the things we needed to take care of on the boards, and we let their -- for us a lot of things that we do when we prepare is about the scout, right.

And so I do think it's to our advantage because we do know Syracuse because we just played them. Now, they know us, as well, but I think for us it's really important because we're more of a man-to-man defensive team. I know last time we played them we were a little bit disappointed as a coaching staff how we didn't stick to our scout. We didn't remember what players, what their strengths were and we let them go to their strengths.

So I'm hoping in this game we kind of take more away from them in that regard and we also don't look so small on both ends of the floor, that we play big.

Q. Coach, I feel like free throws are something that a team can take for granted if you get to the line that your players are expected to hit them. Is there an element of seeing your team go as well as they did from the free-throw line and score as many points essentially from the line that comes back to what you do in practice, comes back to paying the exit price?

JOANNA BERNABEI-MCNAMEE: Yeah, I think it's also because Cam was in the offensive zone. She had 15 of 16 from the free-throw line, so her being able to step up, that just really makes everybody else relax and be able to hit those shots, as well. When one person is hitting from the free-throw line the confidence kind of extends to everybody.

But yes, she was seeing a big basket out there today, and I hope that's the way she sees it this whole tournament.