If a college basketball game were 20 minutes long, the Boston University women’s basketball team would be in hot water usually reserved for the Jackson family.
The past four BU games have been tighter at halftime than Janet’s costume at the Super Bowl. And much like Janet, they too have busted out.
Now the owners of a four-game winning streak – and six out of seven – the Terriers (11-7, 6-3 America East) simply wore down the University of New Hampshire on Wednesday night to take sole possession of fourth place in the America East. Walking into halftime down 28-27, BU came out and made life hairy for the Wildcats (10-8, 5-4) in the second frame, winning by a score of 72-54.
The Terriers caused 30 New Hampshire turnovers on the night, with 22 coming on steals. They pulled down 40 rebounds, including 21 off the offensive glass. Three Terriers scored in double figures.
Junior Adrienne Norris posted her first career triple-double, in points, rebounds and steals (11, 10, 10, respectively). Offensively, senior Katie Terhune led the way with 24 points.
Fourteen of those team steals came in the second half, not to mention 16 of the offensive boards. And after saying goodbye to the recent warm front by shooting 32 percent from the field in the first half, the Terriers rebounded, shooting better than 43 percent in the second.
“As much as it might have sucked in the beginning of the season, with the conditioning and everything, it is paying off now,” senior forward Marisa Moseley said. “Teams can’t keep up with us. Maybe at the beginning, they’re OK, but we wear teams down.”
At first, the Wildcats were OK. Behind 6-foot 3-inch senior Maren Matthias’ eight points and sophomore Ebony Woods’ three three-pointers, the Wildcats found themselves ahead at halftime – barely.
BU freshman guard Meredith Onson ended the first half with a seven-point tear in which the timid freshman broke out to bring the game from 28-20 to 28-27. A starting point guard “who never looks at the basket,” McKeon said jokingly, the quiet catalyst has sparked the Terriers of late, running the show in those last seven games.
It was no different on Wednesday. Coming out of the gates after the half, the Terriers looked more like Greyhounds. With the game tied at 30, the Terriers went on a 12-0 run over the next three minutes.
The run became a 23-5 tear five minutes later, and the rout was on.
Matthias’ thin smile turned into a thick layer of frustration from being denied the ball over and over in the second half, as BU began “digging in,” McKeon said. BU switched defenses from man-to-man to zone, with a full-court press thrown in.
Every time Matthias got the ball, a swarm of Terriers surrounded her. That is assuming, however, that she actually got the ball. With Norris, Moseley and junior Becky Bonner denying Matthias and pressuring the young guards, the Wildcats were helpless, coughing up the ball 17 times in the second half.
The Terriers, on the other hand, had 13 total turnovers.
“They had problems with our pressure,” McKeon said. “I think that when you’re playing against a young team like New Hampshire … we want to change a lot of things up to make them think more so than react. We zoned, and a lot of things came out of turnovers.”
A lot of those things were points. As much as Matthias was used to Terriers in her face, she got just as used to seeing them dash in the other direction.
When the ball was back in their offensive zone, the Terriers had no problem converting. Norris’ 11 points and Terhune’s 24 were joined by Bonner’s 16, as the Terriers capitalized on the majority of their thefts in the second half.
“Before, we were getting steals but we weren’t getting anything out of it,” Moseley said. “It was almost like a wasted possession. We’ve been working a lot in practice on transition drills to make sure that once we get the ball, we can score.”
Flying around the court, the Terriers never seemed to lose rhythm with each other. Beside the fact that they have the depth to keep running even late in the game, they’ve found a way to work together within that depth. Whereas the women were “trying to find the flow” earlier in the season, they now have a solid cast of “seven or eight,” according to McKeon.
“Once we figured out what the seven or eight were going to be,” she said, “we really said, ‘OK, we’re going to concentrate on defense and rebounding the basketball.’ If we can do those two things, we can win a championship, because we have threats.”