The Braves were 10-54 with four league wins in those first two seasons, but nobody outside of bought-in players and coaches understood how the small victories stacked incremental success into the DNA of a program that hadn’t won a postseason game since surprising the COVID-19 season with an MVC championship. Only they understood how they’d purchased a stock at its ground level, and only they retained the commitment to build the team that eventually finished last season in fifth place.
So on Tuesday morning, as Popovec-Goss embarked on her first media junket as the head coach of the Boston College women’s basketball program, she showcased little reservation and even less fear about a decision to step onto the sidelines for a team essentially rebuilt from the ground level after returning two players from last year’s disappointing finish.
“Culture is everything,” said Popovec-Goss during the ACC Tipoff event in Charlotte, N.C. “I think just starting there and being process-driven. Especially in your first couple of years, it’s really easy to get caught up in the wins and losses and [being] very similar to [Bradley]. This is a beast of a league [in the ACC]. You’re not going to come in and waltz through it, so [it’s about] being able to endure the big things while finding people who you feel fit you as a head coach and the institution. We’re off to a good start so far.”
Boston College enters the 2026-2027 season with an interesting cross-section of a program looking to both reinvent and rebuild its core after last season. Last year’s Eagles, for example, entered their season on the heels of an appearance in the Women’s Basketball Invitational Tournament that ended with a near-upset of Villanova, and the 2023 postseason from two years prior included a debatable omission from the NCAA Tournament. The 2020 team that finished in sixth place was considered a lock for the national field of 64 teams before the onset and outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the entire postseason across the board.
Five separate players earned individual awards or All-ACC honors over that time, and BC advanced out of its first game in the postseason tournament on three consecutive occasions. The 2020 team additionally won two games in Greensboro to advance to the semifinals before a loss to the eventual conference champion NC State ended the season in the week ahead of the COVID cancellation. Taylor Soule was selected in the 2023 WNBA Draft after spending one year as a graduate transfer at Virginia Tech.
The Hoag Basketball Pavilion, meanwhile, opened in 2023 as a 40,000-square foot dedicated space for BC’s men’s and women’s programs. For the first time in its history, a dedicated and sport-specific facility gave the Eagles a nutrition center and recovery facility designed specifically for the hardwoods, and a player’s lounge and locker room eclipsed even the wildest dreams from the Power Gym era associated with the earliest days of Margo Plotzke’s program-inaugurating tenure.
“You can read about a program online,” said Popovec-Goss. “You can read statistics. You can talk to people, but until you’re actually on the campus, feeling it every day, there are things that you’re constantly learning. For me, one of the things that I had heard was just that the BC community is so proud and so excited. For us, really tapping into that, winning basketball games and giving them something to be proud of…it’s really deep-rooted. Our fans are real. Our alumni want to help our players. It’s honestly one of the most unique and formative [places] in the country.”
None of that, unfortunately, helped the Eagles avoid what happened over the past year after they won just four games and missed the ACC Tournament with one conference win. Another year of departures left the roster with three players after last year’s team represented a full-scale rebuild in the aftermath of losing most of the WBIT roster, and unquestionable and unavoidable turnover left BC with a radical reshaping that was created out of necessity.
An undeniable learning process emerged from that unknown, but it embedded promise and potential in a team loaded with players who meshed with one another in the preseason. The addition of junior transfer Grace Oliver, for example, added a 14-point and six-rebound player who led the ACC in field goal percentage after shooting 60 percent from the field while sophomore Jocelyne Grier returned to BC after scoring 23 points in last year’s game against NC State, but each will need to learn how to play alongside a Lithuanian import Daniele Paunksnyte and returning point guard Athena Tomlinson while sharing responsibilities with Paraguayan center Gabriela Bernal Ortellado, Spanish forward Nuria Asuaverri, and Canadian forward Eunicia Salgado.
“I think to be successful, you have to stay true to yourself,” said Popovec-Goss. “There are 18 teams in this league. You have to understand that it’s going to be a process. I think for us, measuring our wins and losses, not just in the stat column but in our progression, is going to be really, really important over these first couple of years.”
Boston College opens its 2026-2027 season on Monday, November 2, with a home game against Holy Cross. Tip-off is scheduled for 6 p.m.
