Boston College parts ways with women’s basketball head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee

On Sunday night, Boston College athletics announced its decision to part ways with women’s basketball head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee, who is on the final year of her contract. Bernabei-McNamee had a 113-131 overall record at Boston College over eight seasons, including a 5-25 campaign in 2025-26.

After a promising start to her tenure at BC in which the team finished above .500 in two of three seasons, the program eventually lost its way in the midst of constant roster turnover and locker room issues. Key players rarely stayed on the Heights for more than one or two seasons, a trend that began before the NIL bag-chasing really started in college sports.

The 2025-26 season was especially a disaster. The team’s offense was often completely aimless, failing to score in the double digits for the length of a quarter often. Their field goal percentage ranks 325th of 363 teams in the nation, their rebounding numbers rank 345th, and their defense was literally bottom-15 in all of division 1. For a team in the ACC, even with limited resources for a smaller school like BC, it’s been an abject disaster.

Many national commentators recently have acknowledged how hard it can be to build a winner at Boston College in basketball, but certainly the administration can do better than this.