Everyone loves to come home again for the Thanksgiving holiday. Luckily, for junior forward Becky Bonner and sophomore guard Katie Meinhardt, a trip out west to play No. 6 Stanford University on Friday did prove to be a homecoming of sorts.
Bonner, who played two seasons as a member of the Cardinal before transferring to BU prior to the 2002-2003 campaign, had the chance to revisit her old stomping grounds in Palo Alto, Calif. Meinhardt, a San Francisco native, had close to 100 of her friends and family in the stands to watch her play this past weekend.
Unfortunately, the Cardinal (4-0) served up more than BU could stomach as they handed the Terriers (0-3) their third loss of the season in a 67-51 defeat before 3,461 at Maples Pavilion. While Meinhardt saw only five minutes of action due to a nagging foot injury, Bonner stuffed home a game-high 19 points in the losing effort.
Two-time All-American forward Nicole Powell led the way for the home team, feasting upon the BU defense for a team-high 17 points and 19 rebounds while redshirt junior Susan Borchardt scored 16 points on four three-pointers.
Despite outscoring Stanford 34-33 in the second frame, the Terriers were unable to bounce back from a first half that saw them shoot only 20 percent from the field and score only 17 points by the break. The Cardinal, on the other hand, used a 23-3 run to put the game out of the reach in the early going before cruising to the 16-point win.
But BU coach Margaret McKeon said her team had more to be thankful for than the final score may have indicated.
‘I just think we started to look like a team in the second half,’ McKeon said. ‘We were playing really well off each other. It worked out well in the second half, but we need to put 40 minutes together to play with Stanford. To have any chance of beating them, you have to play 40 minutes at a high level.’
The Terriers jumped out to an early 5-2 lead behind two scores from Bonner, who also posted five rebounds and three steals against her former mates, but a three-pointer from Borchardt with 15:50 remaining started the 23-3 tear that put the Cardinal up for good. BU spouted off eight unanswered points with Powell on the bench late in the half, but some tough Stanford defense, led by freshman Kristen Newlin’s six blocks, smothered the Terriers inside as the first frame came to a close.
The Cardinal held a steady 20-point lead throughout most of the second half before a Marisa Moseley layup cut the deficit to 14 points with less than six minutes to play. Nine second-half points from junior forward Larissa Parr kept the Terriers rolling late in the game, but Stanford would go on to outscore their opponents 13-11 to end any hope of a comeback.
Although BU was unable to overcome a frustrating first half, the team came out after the intermission to shoot 46.2 percent from the field in the second and 40 percent from behind the three point arc. The Terriers also forced 17 turnovers on 15 steals while only losing the ball 13 times, a far cry from the 30 they coughed up against Texas A’M University in the BU Invitational Tournament the weekend before.
‘We played our best basketball as a team so far this whole year,’ McKeon said. ‘I know we didn’t play well in the first half, but there were periods of times … where we executed and got open looks, but we just didn’t make them. We also got the ball inside at times and they did have quite a few blocks [nine total], but we don’t play against teams like Stanford every night.’
Despite all the positives that BU took from the game, the Terriers still saw their star from last year, senior guard Katie Terhune, struggle again to find her scoring touch. The preseason All-Conference pick took aim at the basket 13 times, but only knocked down three shots for seven points all in the second half. So far in this young season, Terhune is only averaging 8.3 points per game.
But from a team perspective, McKeon said that even with the loss, the Terriers are steadily becoming the squad she expected them to be. With tough matchups against Stanford, the University of Florida and Texas A’M to start the season, McKeon said that her team is gaining the experience it will need come tournament time in March.
‘I really feel that we’re building confidence, and we’re not really getting down on ourselves,’ she said. ‘We’re going out and we’re playing and we’re learning how to cope with a lot of different things. We’re understanding that there are certain things that we can improve upon, and that we can play with people like [Stanford].
‘This is just going to make us that much stronger when we get into March,’ McKeon continued, ‘and we put ourselves in a position to get in the NCAA Tournament and we might have to match-up against a team like [Stanford]. I don’t think it will be where we are just shell-shocked.’
While the last three contests may have been tagged as learning experiences, McKeon said that the next four games with the next two at home against Fordham University on Dec. 3 and Fairleigh Dickinson University on Dec. 6 are ones the Terriers must win.
And if they play like they did against Stanford in the second half, McKeon feels confident that the Terriers can finally start to turn their season around.
‘I think the next four games are going to be a true test of if we really have gotten over the hump as a program period,’ she said. ‘And that means by getting ‘W’s. We can’t have any setbacks.’
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