Despite the snow, Bonner fitting in fine in Boston

Two years ago, Becky Bonner was hanging at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. No 20-minute walks to class through slush and homicidal motorists. No T conductors. Trees.

That was two years ago.

Today, she’s trudging through that cold gray matter, braving the Boston winter and loving it. The 20 points a night heat things up just enough, though.

Bonner, a redshirt junior transfer from Stanford, leads the Boston University women’s basketball team in scoring as of Wednesday, with 19.3 points per game. Her 26-point effort against Fordham University on Dec. 3 earned her America East Conference Co-Player of the Week honors.

Playing from the small or power forward position, the 6-foot-2-inch Bonner is the Mercedes SUV of the Terriers powerful, yet sleek. Able to play down below she averages five rebounds per game or pull back and stick a three in the eye of her defenseless defender, Bonner poses matchup problems against almost any opponent the Terriers (2-3) will face all year.

Not bad, for a player who went from playing Division I basketball for the currently fifth-ranked Cardinal to sitting out all last year due to NCAA transfer regulations.

So, if you’re looking for Bonner, just go to any women’s hoops game. Immediately look for the ‘big redhead,’ as senior guard Katie Terhune calls her. And what else would go with white, for a Terrier, but red?

Make a slight trip down with your eyes, and take in something you’ll see for the rest of the game. Bonner’s smile could power Boston, or at least melt the toddler-stealing amount of snow currently on the ground. And then watch the smile explode as she hits a three-pointer from her favorite spot at the top of the key.

‘I’m having fun,’ she said. ‘I don’t ever want to take it too seriously, because I don’t play well when I do that. So if I just have fun with that, I just play.’

It’s a smile powered itself by the realization that Bonner belongs in Beantown, as part of what head coach Margaret McKeon calls a ‘one-two punch’ with Terhune. And she’s stepped right in to lead BU not only in scoring, but both verbally and as a model for the rest of the team on the court. Add that to the fact that she absolutely ‘loves’ to play basketball, according to McKeon, and you’ve got quite an asset.

‘She leads by example,’ McKeon said. ‘She does that day in and day out. I’ve been collegiate coaching in Division I for 14 years. And the fact of the matter is that I’ve recruited and coached All-Americans in college, and she has the work ethic and determination to be that good.’

It’s a white smile powered by the idea that it’s no longer paired with the Cardinal of Stanford University, but with the scarlet and white of BU. Bonner, a third-team Parade All-American at Concord High School in New Hampshire, was left to waste in the West, being used mainly as a late-game three-point shooter.

Despite averaging 4.3 minutes and one point per game in her two years at Stanford, the worst part was not the lack of court time.

‘I was just under a lot of psychological mind games there, under the coaching staff,’ she said. ‘The team had really bad chemistry. It was just dramatic, like a soap opera. It wasn’t fun.’

Now, there’s about as much drama as a FOX sitcom for Bonner and her Terrier teammates. She’s now with teammates tighter than the 8:30 a.m. T train. The group, which Bonner calls ‘hilarious’ and ‘amazing,’ even smiles while sprinting. Her new family, outside of those at home which includes her older brother Matt, the 45th pick in last year’s NBA draft provides her not only with framework for on-court success but off-court chaos.

‘I wish a camera would follow us around,’ she said. ‘The way we joke back and forth, you’d die.’

And it’s not just the closeness of the team but the closeness of the program’s style to Bonner’s own style that makes her so comfortable here. While Stanford was ‘systematic,’ BU offers Bonner a chance to just go out and have fun, she said. Which is what she wanted all along.

‘You’re allowed to just play and read what you get and execute that way,’ Bonner said. ‘So, I have a lot more freedom here and a lot more ability to just play the game. It’s definitely more fun.’

But Bonner did not make the transfer to Terrierville because of basketball, she said. More importantly, she had to gather everything she had pushed aside because of basketball.

‘When I made the decision to transfer,’ she said, ‘I was just thinking about getting myself together mentally and finding the right fit for me.’

Lucky for McKeon and the rest of the Terriers, Bonner didn’t stay away for too long. After she did make the decision, Bonner spent the first semester here getting acquainted with life in Boston. McKeon said she wanted Bonner to become comfortable with the new scenario, coming back from two years of college life on the left coast which wasn’t quite right for Bonner.

‘Then the second semester came along,’ McKeon said, ‘and I said, ‘Now it’s our turn.”

Once she began working with the team, it all just snowballed. Her seemingly seamless transition from scout-teamer to A-teamer was due in large part to the amount of work she put in during the offseason, McKeon said.

‘I told her, ‘I want you to really be a great player for us,’ McKeon said. ‘Even though she was sitting out, she was really working on her game. And that’s really unusual for a redshirt.’

Initially, McKeon gave the team time to get used to Bonner and see how they liked the newest Terrier. The apprehension ended when Bonner actually met the girls. After that, it was all history that history being, of course, Mel Brooks’ ‘History of the World’ style.

‘We’re all real close on and off the court, so bringing her positive force in really helped,’ Terhune said. ‘And she shoots the ‘beep’ out of the ball.’

Shoot she does. And make those shots she does, with what McKeon calls a ‘quick trigger.’ But aside from the fact that Bonner busts herself at all times, in every sense and cliché of the idea, McKeon said that a large reason Bonner is so successful is selective memory.

‘She never thinks about ‘The shot I missed …” McKeon said. ‘She hasn’t been like that yet, and I hope she never is while she’s here at BU. If she misses four, five, six shots in a row, she’d never think, ‘Oh, I’ve got to stop shooting.’ She would be like, ‘I’m going to make the next one.’

‘She has this inner confidence that when she steps between the lines, she knows she can get things done,’ McKeon said. ‘And as a coach, you love that, because you don’t have to mentally challenge the kid day in and day out.’

Now that she’s part of that A-team, it’s easy to pity the fools she plays against, according to McKeon. And if Bonner keeps working as hard as she has been, there’s no reason not to expect anything less.

‘We just wanted Becky to have a good experience, play and enjoy herself,’ McKeon said. ‘I believe that everything follows after that … as long as you have the work ethic. She does, and she has the desire and likes to play the game. She has all the qualities you need to be someone special, and I think that’s what Becky Bonner is.’

With the Terriers fresh off wins against Fordham and Central Connecticut State University, and with conference play only a few weeks away, Bonner hopes to keep up the pace and pace BU to its second consecutive America East title.

And prove that California’s not the only state that knows how to party.