The Boston University women’s basketball team knows it is in the middle of the most difficult part of its schedule. Tuesday, the women traveled to Storrs, Conn. to battle the perennial powerhouse University of Connecticut Huskies. This weekend, the Terriers head to Arizona to play in the Verizon Wireless Arizona State University Classic, where BU will be in the company of three postseason teams from last year. The first opponent on tap for BU (3-2) will be the ASU Sun Devils (5-1) on Friday at 6 p.m.
ASU is currently 14th in the Associated Press poll and 15th in the ESPN/USA Today coaches’ poll, and they will present quite a challenge for the Terriers. ASU’s lone defeat of the season came at the hands of the University of Tennessee which was ranked No. 4 at the time. But as good as the Sun Devils are, BU coach Kelly Greenberg believes they provide a much better matchup for the Terriers than UConn did.
“They’re not going to be as big as UConn,” Greenberg said. “They probably have better guard play than UConn, so it’s a little bit of a flip-flop there. I think it’s a better match up, especially because of Aly [Hinton] and Kristen [Folk]. They’re so young, and they even looked younger at times [on Tuesday] even though they played well.”
BU’s young frontcourt struggled against the much bigger UConn forwards, who out-rebounded the Terriers 52-26, but Greenberg feels playing UConn will help the Terriers in their match-up against ASU.
“For most of the East Coast girls on the team, UConn is everything,” Greenberg said. “Arizona State is very good, but you don’t hear about them as much, so it’s almost better.”
It is important for the Terriers to play solid defense against the Sun Devils if they hope to emerge with an upset on Friday.
“We just want to mix it up,” Greenberg said. “We’ll play some zone, some box-and-one on their point guard who’s pretty good, and we’ll go some man-to-man.”
Junior Cherri Raffo will be the designated man-on defender in the box-and-one set, and Greenberg hopes the defense will cause some confusion on the Sun Devils’ end.
The Terriers will need to play solid defense against senior forward Emily Westerberg, who comes into the game averaging 15.5 points per game on .603 percent shooting from the field.
“They have a great player in Westerberg,” Greenberg said. “We’re hoping to limit her shots.”
BU will also need to play better offensively if it hopes to avoid falling to .500 on the season. In their last two losses, the Terriers have struggled to hit the open shot. In the teams’ three wins, the Terriers have averaged 80.3 points per game but have only managed to score 57.5 ppg in games they have lost.
“I’m just hoping we have a break-out game offensively,” Greenberg said. “We’ve really talked a lot about offense.”
BU can look for encouragement in the Sun Devils’ poor play during their most recent game against unranked Western Kentucky University (4-2). In that game, Westerberg fouled out with less than five minutes left to play while the Sun Devils were leading by 10 points. With ASU’s leading scorer out of the game, WKU rallied to close the lead to one before ASU narrowly squeezed out a victory, scoring a lay-up with 0:18 left on the clock.
The Terriers will follow their match-up with Arizona State against either Eastern Michigan University (2-1) or Northern Arizona University (4-3) on Saturday.
“We like being in tournaments,” Greenberg said. “It prepares us for no turnaround — you’ve got to come back the next day and win an even more important game.”
The Terriers are hoping tournaments like this weekend’s and games like Tuesday’s against UConn will help them when America East Conference play rolls around.
“I’m hoping what’s going to happen is our girls walk into the gym and be like, ‘we’re more ready, we’re going to be physical, we’ve seen it all so we’re ready for anything,'” Greenberg said.
Unfortunately for the Terriers, sophomore forward Jesyka Burks-Wiley will be out for the tournament, though she has been practicing after receiving a doctor’s permission. The Terriers expect to be back on the court for their game against Brown University at Agganis Arena on Wednesday.
But for now, BU is just looking forward to the tournament in Arizona this weekend.
“We’re excited to be part of a good group of teams,” Greenberg said. “We’re excited to be part of what I’m told is a big-time tournament.”