Last Wednesday, the Boston University women’s basketball team jumped out to a 33-12 lead against Brown University and never let the Bears pull within 20 for the remainder of the game.
The Terriers (5-4) appeared to be on their way to another blowout victory last night ‘-‘- the 450th win in program history ‘-‘- against Harvard University (4-4) at Case Gymnasium, jumping out to a 15-0 lead and then leading by as many as 23 points in the first half.
But the Crimson refused to go down without a fight. They started the second half on a 22-9 run to cut BU’s lead to six before BU ultimately shut the door on the Ivy Leaguers, extending its winning streak at The Roof to 16 games in an 80-61 victory.
Harvard’s run coincided with the emergence of forward Emma Markley (12 points, 8 rebounds), the Crimson’s leading scorer and rebounder.
The 6-foot-3 sophomore was held to two points and one rebound in the first half, but exploded for 10 points and five rebounds in the first 12 minutes of the second half.
‘Obviously, she’s a great player,’ BU senior forward Jesyka Burks-Wiley said of Markley. ‘Just because she had a rough start doesn’t mean she’s going to end that way. Any great player can always bounce back. You know, she went on a little run with us, but our defense stood up tremendously against her. We made sure we were physical with her and didn’t allow her to get comfortable and duck in over us.’
After shooting 54.5 percent from the field in the first half, the Terriers went cold to start the second, missing 12 of their first 16 shots. BU put an end to its freeze and Harvard’s comeback bid by driving the lane and not settling for contested jumpers.
‘I don’t think we did anything differently,’ senior guard Kristi Dini (12 points, 7 rebounds) said of BU’s poor shooting to start the second half. ‘That happens in games ‘-‘- you go back and forth. Same thing with the runs. Each team is going to go on runs. They started the second half really tough, and luckily we stepped up the defense and started knocking down shots.’
The Terriers made one layup after another in the final seven minutes, closing out the game on a 22-10 run.
With 6:50 remaining in the game, Burks-Wiley, who led all scorers with 21 points, hit a reverse layup to extend BU’s lead to 58-49. A minute later, senior point guard Christine Kinneary (10 points, 6 assists) fed sophomore forward Kerry Cashman in the low post for an easy two to up the deficit to 11.
Burks-Wiley put the game away with a spinning layup for an and-1 between two defenders that made it 67-54 with less than four minutes remaining.
‘I think they got some early, easy shots,’ BU coach Kelly Greenberg said of the second half. ‘They got some transition baskets and, again, they made some nice adjustments offensively for the beginning of the second half.
‘Once we figured some things out, we settled down a little bit. I think they came out like gangbusters and scored a lot and made us a little more like, ‘Uh oh.’ After we got past that, we were fine. It was really nice to see that our team had a lot of character.’
The Crimson found themselves battling from behind thanks to an all-around outstanding effort by BU in the first half. In addition to knocking down more than half of their shots, the undersized Terriers out-rebounded Harvard, 22-18. Seven of those boards came on the offensive glass, leading to 11 second-chance points.
BU also recorded 11 takeaways with its aggressive press, leading to 13 points off turnovers.
‘I thought our defense and our energy were great,’ Greenberg said. ‘And then we made shots. We just made everything we were putting up ‘-‘- layups, outside shots. If we could start every game like that, life would be really great.’
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