There’s no question that the Boston University women’s basketball team has improved considerably this year, but Saturday’s home tilt against preseason America East favorite University of Vermont showed the Terriers are still a long way from reaching a championship level.
The junior and senior-dominated Catamounts made every big play in the clutch, and left The Roof with a 76-65 victory over the young Terriers.
The Terriers (12-8, 5-4 America East) scored 23 points in the first 8:40 of the contest by making nine of their first 13 shots from the field. The Terriers led 38-34 at the break after shooting 53 percent (16-of-30) in the first half, including 14 of freshman Larissa Parr’s career-high 21 points. But they couldn’t make the plays when it counted, and the result was their 13th straight loss to the Catamounts and the end of their four-game winning streak.
“I believe Vermont is the team to beat,” BU head coach Margaret McKeon said. “They’re a talented team, they’re a veteran team, and they’ve won before. I thought we showed a lot of character and heart, but we still have some ways to go.”
Vermont (12-7, 6-2 America East) has been down this road before, winning the conference championship two years ago and reaching the championship game last year. With a roster featuring four juniors and two seniors, the Catamounts came into this season as the consensus favorite, and they showed why in the final 20 minutes.
“We’ve been in a lot of big games over the years,” Vermont head coach Keith Cieplicki said. “We just talked about hanging in and giving ourselves a chance to win at the end. That’s what it’s like on the road.”
After Katie Terhune opened the second half with a jump shot, Vermont forced the Terriers into seven-straight misses, yet still trailed, 40-39, when Parr converted a layup at the 14:45 mark.
Parr hit a rare three-pointer from the left corner to extend BU’s lead to 47-41 with 12:32 remaining. But Parr would only score once more the rest of the game, as Vermont took control.
After preseason Player of the Year Morgan Hall (17 points, 7 rebounds) and forward Aaron Yantzi (17 points, 4 rebounds) hit back-to-back jump shots, Vermont unleashed a stunning three-point barrage. Lani Boardman hit two straight trifectas to give Vermont a 51-47 lead that it wouldn’t relinquish.
Junior guard Alison Argentieri briefly brought the Terriers to 51-50 with an NBA-range three of her own, but Vermont’s Hall and Libby Smith answered back with two threes to extend the lead to 57-50, capping a 16-3 run.
To their credit, the Terriers didn’t go away, twice getting within three points in the final three minutes. A layup by Marisa Moseley got the Terriers to within 66-63, and the Terriers forced Dawn Cressman to force up a wild shot with one second on the shot clock. The shot missed badly, but Katie McNamara grabbed the offensive board and put it back for a 68-63 lead.
Parr’s final basket cut the lead to 68-65 with 1:35 remaining, but Vermont had yet another answer. Yantzi made a great cut to the basket, where Hall found her for the layup and a 70-65 lead. The Terriers wouldn’t score again as Vermont hit all six of its free throws in the final minute.
Perhaps the biggest factor in the Terriers’ loss was their free throw shooting, or lack of free throw shots. The Terriers didn’t make it to the charity stripe even once in the second half, a combination of smart defense by Vermont (only nine fouls for the entire game) and a little bit of tentativeness on the part of the Terriers.
As an example of this, Terhune, who often lives by getting to the stripe, shot one free throw with 13:34 remaining in the first half and never made it back.
“[Vermont] did a solid job defensively, but we really didn’t attack the basket in the second half,” McKeon said. “When we did get inside, we didn’t really try to get a foul. We just shot the ball extremely well in the first half. But going 1-for-8 out of the box in the second half really hurt us. I really think that the first five minutes had a major indication of how this second half was going to go.”
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