Eminem was right. One shot’s all you need.
It only took one shot for senior guard Katie Terhune to etch her name atop the Boston University women’s basketball’s all-time scoring list with 1,884 career points. The changing of the guard was the first in 14 years.
Then, it only took one shot – and miles of sunken hearts – for Stony Brook University freshman Mykeema Ford to drastically change the picture of the rest of BU’s season.
Ford’s drive to the basket and bucket with seven seconds remaining gave the Seawolves (7-17, 6-9) the 72-70 upset victory over the Terriers (15-9, 10-5) at the Indoor Sports Complex in Stony Brook, N.Y. on Wednesday. Only 368 fans saw history dance with misery on the same hardwood floor, Terhune’s record falling on its knees in the face of the team’s heart-mauling loss.
While the Terriers shot only 37.5 percent from the floor, the Seawolves heated up the dance floor with the ball, hitting 50 percent of their shots on the night. Four Wolves scored in double figures, and two – Sherry Jordan and Jessica Smith – pulled down double-digit rebounds (14 and 13, respectively) as they made it a long night in Long Island for the tails-between-their-legs Terriers.
BU coach Margaret McKeon, as well as the team itself, could not be reached for comment after the game.
Ford’s streaking bucket came after BU junior Becky Bonner evened the score at 70 on her sixth three-pointer of the night with 32 seconds remaining. After going into the half with a 30-28 lead, the Terriers fell behind by 11 points with 4:36 to go.
The Stony Brook comeback came thanks to a 17-3 Seawolves run earlier in the half and a blistering 60-percent shooting performance after the break. But then Becky Bonner began to heat up.
Bonner scored 11 points on the subsequent 15-4 BU sprint over the next four minutes, capping the run with her 24th point of the day. But, as things would have it, it turned out the finish line lay a few meters farther.
Unfortunately for the Terriers, Ford had been trucking all day. After running on all cylinders in Stony Brook’s 67-66 loss at BU on Jan. 28 – when she scored 31 points – Ford saved her engine for one last charge on Wednesday, scoring 11 points on the night. She added five assists, before adding a drop of Terrier poison to the mix.
Her 11 in 30 minutes were third on the team, behind Kelly Watson’s 19 and Jordan’s 18. Smith rounded out the scoring quartet with 10 of her own.
All four scorers – plus their aquatic lupus-istants – amounted to the first time the Terriers have allowed more than 70 points since their loss to the conference-leading University of Maine on Jan. 21.
The Terriers managed to cause 19 Stony Brook turnovers on the night, but they coughed up 15 of their own. For a team that has relied on charity points of late – whether from turnovers or from the foul line – the Terriers were thrown no such bone on Wednesday. They only took seven shots from the foul line, nailing three. The Seawolves, on the other hand, hit 11 of 20.
Most of the scoring came from the outside against a Stony Brook team that had only one six-foot starter. The Terriers had been forcing the ball inside lately, but the loss of 6-foot-2-inch senior Marisa Moseley has hurt the inside presence of the team.
BU hit 13 threes on the night, accounting for more than half its points, but also attributing to the lack of free throws. Despite the recent efforts the team has made to get the ball inside, there was less paint action than a tapestry store.
The loss knocks the Terriers into a two-way tie for second place in the America East with Binghamton University. Hence, the race is now tighter than pre-Subway Jared’s jeans. And who do the Terriers’ have up next? Binghamton, of course. Keep in mind, the Bearcats already chalked up a victory over the Terriers on Jan. 11.
Thirteen games and 10 victories later, the Terriers should be entering the game with confidence. Instead, with two losses in their last three, that confidence is shaken. And as of the last two games – shooting below 38 percent in each – cold.
But, for a team that has high tournament hopes, they’ve got to pick it up. Because once tournament time rolls around, you really only get one shot.