For the past two years, whenever the backcourt of the Boston University women’s basketball team was discussed, junior guard Katie Terhune was most likely the subject.
This is no longer the case.
While Terhune is still the Terriers’ best offensive weapon, the depth at the guard position for the Terriers has been the story during the preseason.
‘We have four players, and with freshman guard Katie Meinhardt coming back from injury and starting to play in practice, we actually have five guards who will play a lot,’ said BU Coach Margaret McKeon.
With senior Allison Argentieri and junior Courtney Jones returning with Terhune, the Terriers knew they would have an improved backcourt from last season.
However, when the freshman class stepped on campus, the backcourt got deeper and more versatile, with the addition of freshmen Rachael Vanderwal and Meinhardt.
‘This is the first year that I’ve been playing where you can tell we’re a lot better than the year before,’ Argentieri said.
McKeon said she believes each player has shown during the preseason why she deserves playing time.
‘I thought Allison Argentieri played very well against Massachusetts in our closed scrimmage, and Courtney Jones played well against the foreign team in the exhibition,’ McKeon said. ‘Katie Terhune has been playing well all the way around. Rachael Vanderwal has been doing the things we’ve asked of her, not turning the ball over and making good passes.’
The depth at the position has left McKeon wondering who she’ll start each week. It’s a problem she doesn’t mind having.
‘We can really fill in any one of them,’ said McKeon. ‘It’s going to come down to match-ups and who is playing well in practice that week.’
The competitiveness in the backcourt, especially at the point guard position has had a positive effect on the players.
‘We know that nobody has a solid starting position,’ Vanderwal said. ‘It helps us to be able to push each other during practice. We feed off each other.’
McKeon said the improvements of this year’s team include taking better care of the basketball on offense. The team averaged almost 20 turnovers a game last year.
‘I think overall, we will have a little more respect for the ball. It will be a key thing for us,’ McKeon said. ‘We can’t turn the ball over like we did last year against the better teams.’
Another area where the Terriers will look to improve upon last year is scoring. Terhune led the guards and the team, averaging more than 18 points per game, but the second highest scorer on the team was Argentieri, who averaged only eight points per game.
BU showed some progress in getting scoring help during an exhibition game against Istrobanka Lokomotiva, as Jones came off the bench to contribute 10 points.
The versatility of this year’s guards will allow BU to give teams different looks on offense and create more scoring opportunities.
‘If someone is playing a zone, obviously Allison Argentieri is going to play a lot because she can really stroke the ball,’ McKeon said, noting Argentieri’s touch from the perimeter, especially from behind the three-point arc.
McKeon hopes to play more of an up-tempo game, pushing the ball up the court and using a three-guard lineup to display their speed.
‘I hope to see Allison Argentieri, Rachael Vanderwal in there, with Katie Terhune as the third guard,’ McKeon explained. ‘It should work against quite a bit of the people we’re playing against.’
While McKeon will not use the three-guard set against taller teams such as Vanderbilt University, she hopes to use it later in the season when BU plays smaller teams.
It’s an offensive scheme that excites Argentieri.
‘I like it better,’ Argentieri said. ‘We move the ball up the court a lot quicker. Plus either Rachael or I can play the point, so it gives us versatility.’
The Terriers hope versatility in the backcourt translates into wins when they begin a tough non-conference slate at home against nationally ranked Vanderbilt this Saturday at 2 p.m at ‘The Roof’ at Case Gymnasium. Vanderbilt is ranked in the top ten in some polls.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
