BU trounced by No. 1 Maine

The University of Maine women’s basketball team took advantage of a poor shooting performance by Boston University to cruise to a 59-37 win last night at Case Gymnasium.

The fans in attendance may view the term poor to be an understatement. The Terriers (7-11, 4-3 AE) shot 18.5 percent from the field, connecting on just 10 shots from the field all game. No BU player hit more than two field goals and they all tallied at least one turnover in a game that pitted the first-place Black Bears (13-4, 6-0 AE) against the second-place Terriers.

The Black Bears, undefeated in conference play, were led by forward Heather Ernest’s double-double that included 20 points and 12 rebounds. Guard Kim Corbitt added nine assists to help key Maine’s offense, which utilized crisp passing and quick ball movement to slice through the Terrier defense.

The ball movement was less impressive for BU’s offense, which focused on penetrating through the Black Bear defense, but came away unsuccessful hitting just four of 15 lay-ups for the game. The Terriers, however, were forced to stay with an inside game, as they were an even worse four for 26 on shots outside the paint.

The lone bright spot for BU was the play of sophomore forward Adrienne Norris who has been battling a case of shin splints, and still managed to play 31 minutes and score a team-high 13 points. Norris battled inside for BU, keeping her team from slipping behind by more than 26 points by hitting 9-10 free throws.

‘When things aren’t going well for us on the outside, we try to get things going on the inside, by putting back offensive rebounds and trying to get to the line,’ Norris said.

Norris’ play in the first half forced BU coach Margaret McKeon to make a halftime adjustment. The combination of Norris’ aggressiveness and the mismatch of Maine guards having to contain her forced teammates to get the ball to Norris more on the low post in the second half.

‘I thought Adrienne was aggressive. She got out on the break, she wanted the ball, she attacked the basket and she got fouled. It was that easy,’ McKeon said. ‘We were like, ‘get her the ball,’ but at that point in the time, we were down 20.’

Once the Terriers fell behind by 20 points, 26-6, with 9:14 to play in the first half, they never got any closer for the duration of the game. With Maine stuck at 26 points for the next four minutes of the first half, BU had a chance to crawl back into contention. The Terriers failed to capitalize on their chance, by also going through that stretch without any points. It was part of an almost 13-minute stretch in the first half in which BU failed to sink a field goal.

‘If we ever could get out of the doghouse in regards to scoring, we could have made this a game,’ McKeon said.

‘If we could’ve gotten say 10 points there, we could’ve gone into the locker room down 10 points. And it’s a whole new ballgame, our kids get a little more confidence,’ McKeon continued. ‘But shooting the ball the way we shot the ball. We missed wide open lay-ups, wide open shots.’

The guard tandem of junior Katie Terhune and freshman Katie Meinhardt both had poor shooting nights in the same game, for the first time since conference play began at the start of January. Terhune shot just one of six from the field and finished with four points. Meinhardt shot two for 12 from the field, and scored six points.

‘I thought Katie Meinhardt played like a freshman today, unfortunately,’ McKeon said. ‘Offensively we tried a lot of different things and our guards who have been scoring for us for the most part, just went south.’

The Terriers will have more than a week to fix what went wrong in last night’s game and get ready for their next game on Thursday at the University of Albany. It may take that long, as McKeon was still searching for answers almost an hour after the game ended.

‘I don’t know if they were shell-shocked or what,’ McKeon said. ‘It was ugly, absolutely ugly.’