For a while it looked as if the Boston University women’s basketball team would eclipse the 100-point mark for the first time in over 15 years. The Terriers had to settle for 93 in what was the team’s most impressive victory of the year, a 93-51 blowout over Stony Brook University last night at Case Gymnasium.
The Terriers (10-11, 7-3 America East) got some good news even before the opening tip. Prior to the game, they found out that Stony Brook’s best player, Sherry Jordan, who leads Stony Brook in scoring, rebounding and steals, would not take the court due to ‘academic issues,’ according to a BU Sports Information spokesperson. Once the teams did take the court, it became clear that Stony Brook (6-15, 4-6 America East) is a lot more than one player away from competing with the Terriers.
The game opened up with three minutes of sloppy basketball, as BU didn’t get on the board until sophomore forward Larissa Parr hit two free throws just over three minutes into the game. After trailing 5-4 early on, the Terriers found their groove and reeled off nine points in a row to take a 13-5 lead that they would never relinquish.
Senior center Rachel Werner, who scored a season-high seven points, hit a free throw that put the Terriers up 19-9. The BU lead would not dip back into single digits for the rest of the night.
BU extended its lead to 25-9 with 9:05 left in the first half, and then the teams played even basketball until the break. Junior guard Katie Terhune led the way for the Terriers in the first half, scoring 12 points while grabbing nine of her game-high 11 rebounds, good enough for her first double-double of the season.
Terhune’s role as the team’s scorer was made easier by the play of freshman guard Katie Meinhardt, who just won her third Rookie of the Week honor. Meinhardt had nine points in the first half, and pointed out how effective of a tandem she and Terhune can be when they are both hitting their shots.
‘It’s a nice balance because most teams come out and they’re focusing on Katie [Terhune] because she’s the best shooter in the league,’ Meinhardt said. ‘She’ll be on one side and I kind of get left open on the weak side, so that’s how I get my shots off. And then if I start hitting they have to come guard me and she’ll get her shots.’
The Katies made the most of any shot attempts they got, each scoring 23 points in the game while combining to hit 18 of 34 shots, including four of eight from three-point range. Their hot shooting paved the way for the Terriers, who connected on 54.7 percent of their shots as a team, as well as 90 percent shooting from the line. The numbers for the Seawolves were quite different as they struggled to 32.3 percent shooting from the field, including a dismal one for 14 from downtown, and just 55.6 percent shooting from the charity stripe.
In the Terriers’ last meeting with Stony Brook, the Seawolves were deadly from long range, something BU coach Margaret McKeon concentrated on changing.
‘Last time they hit a lot of three pointers, so we concentrated on that,’ McKeon said. ‘Their inside game killed us because before the game we were concentrated on their perimeter, thinking Jordan was going to play.’
McKeon decided not to change the team’s defensive strategy in the second half, a decision that turned out to be a brilliant one. The Terriers sent the Seawolves home with a 54-26 second half performance that saw the Terriers fall just seven points shy of the century mark, a feat they last accomplished against Brooklyn in 1987, a game BU won 106-48.
While the outcome of the game was never really in question, the Terriers showed something in the second half that they haven’t all season a killer instinct.
The second half was dominated by the BU defense, and an offense dedicated to crashing the boards for second-chance points. Junior center Amparo Lopez followed a miss by senior guard Alison Argentieri to put BU up 43-27. Stony Brook center Bojana Bogetic did all she could to get the Seawolves back into the game, scoring on consecutive possessions with clever post moves that briefly stopped the Terrier onslaught. But Bogetic’s 20 points and eight rebounds were not enough, as the Terriers’ dry spell was short-lived.
An opportunistic Terrier defense led to many breakaways resulting in numerous uncontested layups for BU. Terhune hit Meinhardt and freshman Rachael Vanderwal with full court passes to create easy layups in the second half. Vanderwal scored six points in just over two minutes late in the second half to cap an 18-4 run that gave the Terriers a 40 point lead, 87-47. Vanderwal finished the game with 10 points, joining Argentieri, who had 11, Terhune and Meinhardt in double figures.
One major difference between this game and earlier contests for BU is that the Terriers made the majority of their open layups.
‘Our defense has been pretty good for the most part all year long it’s just that we haven’t been converting off any steals,’ McKeon said.
Lopez scored the game’s final four points, extending the Terrier advantage to 42 points, 93-51, marking the first time the Terriers scored more than 90 points in a game since early last season when BU topped Harvard University 93-77. The Terriers 42-point margin of victory is the largest for BU since 1988 when the Terriers again victimized Brooklyn for a 76-31 romp.
With the win, BU remains in second place in the America East standings. The Terriers head to Connecticut to face the University of Hartford on Saturday, and with a win, can raise their overall record to 11-11, an impressive mark considering the Terriers opened the year 2-8 with a rigorous non-conference schedule.
‘We’re playing our best basketball right now, and this is the time you want to be playing your best basketball,’ McKeon said. ‘We still have some room for improvement, but I think we’re getting there.’
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