Hardwood history

In the postgame press conference following the Boston University women’s basketball team’s season-ending 68-53 loss at Boston College, a reporter asked BU coach Kelly Greenberg if the 2008-09 season was a success.

Greenberg, always patient and polite with the media, tried to stifle a smile, but couldn’t help letting out a laugh before answering the journalist’s question.

‘Yes, I think this season was a success,’ Greenberg said.

The 2008-09 Terriers enter the books of BU history as one of the most decorated teams in the university’s annals. The program’s record books are overflowing with signs of the squad’s accomplishments.

This year’s team set a BU record for wins in a season (25). From Jan. 2 through March 14, the Terriers embarked on a program-record 19-game winning streak. The streak covered the entire America East regular season, leading BU to its first undefeated conference season ever, along with the program’s first outright regular-season America East title.

Three senior Terriers ‘-‘- Jesyka Burks-Wiley, Christine Kinneary and Amarachi Umez-Eronini ‘-‘- were honored as First Team All-America East members, making the 2008-09 Terriers the first team since the University of Vermont in 1993 to send three players to the First Team.

Along with fellow senior Kristi Dini, the foursome won 78 games during its four years under Greenberg, making the class of 2009 the winningest class in program history.

Additionally, Umez-Eronini was recognized as the America East Defensive Player of the Year, and Burks-Wiley was recognized as the conference’s Player of the Year.

Burks-Wiley fought through double teams and a nagging knee injury to average 17.9 points and 7.3 rebounds per game. In January, Burks-Wiley brought home the America East Player of the Week hardware four-consecutive weeks, averaging 22.3 points per game during the span. Over the course of Burks-Wiley’s award-winning season, the forward became just the eighth player in program history to collect 1,000 points and 500 rebounds in her career.

‘There was like a five- or six-game stretch where Jes was just, ‘Wow,” Greenberg, the America East Coach of the Year, said. ‘More and more in the post, just rebounding and really dominating. I think [assistant coach Charmaine Steele] did a great job of really challenging Jes on getting rebounds every game and trying to get her numbers up . . . Jes’ run during those games really just demanded respect from conference opponents.

‘I remember talking to Jes as a freshman and saying, ‘You could be one of the best players in this conference if you get in better shape and get serious about a couple of things.’ To watch Jes become that best player in the conference, to me, is truly rewarding because she worked so hard.’

Other records set by BU’s senior class in 2008-09:

-Kinneary broke the career mark for assists, surpassing Debbie Miller’s (’81) mark of 477.

-Dini smashed the previous records for 3s both in a season (109) and in a career (208).

-Both Burks-Wiley (161) and Umez-Eronini (144) broke Katie Terhune’s (’02) program record of 141 free throws made in a single season.

-Kinneary set a new single-season mark for minutes played with 1,265, surpassing the previous record she had set in 2007-08 (1,201).

The story of the 2008-09 Terriers’ season, however, didn’t always look so promising. The squad entered the campaign hurting at the forward position ‘-‘- junior transfer Maggie McKemie’s BU debut was delayed until late December due to injury, and junior Aly Hinton’s minutes and productivity were hindered as she recovered from a pair of off-season knee surgeries.

The Terriers struggled with inconsistency through the first stretch of non-conference games, capped by a pair of disappointing losses at the Buckeye Classic at Ohio State University. After returning from the Classic, Greenberg and her staff decided something needed to change.

‘I can remember very clearly returning from the Ohio State tournament and our players being down,’ Greenberg said. ‘I think there was a lot of frustration, and I think there were a lot of question marks from players and coaches thinking, ‘Wow, you know, I think we’re good, but it’s not happening. What do we have to do?”

The culprit, Greenberg and her staff decided, was the team’s warmup routine.

‘We felt like, at the time, we weren’t starting games very strong,’ Greenberg said. ‘My assistant coaches and I actually went up to Case [Gymnasium] and were on the court for two-and-a-half hours by ourselves, just walking through [the warmup routine] as if we were the players. We totally redefined our entire warmup from an hour and 45 minutes before gametime.

‘I really think that something as small as that really, really helped change our focus, and I think the girls valued that.’

Despite going 2-2 in their next four games, the Terriers improved their play, and as 2008 turned to 2009, the squad’s health improved. As the commencement of the conference season approached, the squad started realizing its potential.

BU opened the conference season by winning its first eight games by an average margin of 14.4 points. Then, on Feb. 7, the Terriers headed north to Burlington, Vt. to take on the third-place University of Vermont.

The Catamounts, always a tough team to beat at home, forced the game to overtime, where BU jumped to an early 6-0 lead. Vermont battled back, but UVM junior Courtnay Pilypaitis, who had tied the game and forced overtime with four seconds left in regulation, was unable to connect on a trey attempt with three seconds left and the Catamounts trailing by three. Kinneary grabbed the rebound to secure a 64-61 overtime victory for BU.

Greenberg said the Vermont game was especially memorable because of the strong fan-base that followed the squad up to Burlington.

‘I felt like our players started really feeling it then, like, ‘Look at all these people that came up and stayed overnight,” Greenberg said. ‘I felt like that was a moment our players realized we were doing something special.’

Two weeks and three America East victories later, the Terriers faced perhaps the biggest test of their 2008-09 season. On Feb. 24, BU headed to West Hartford, Conn. to take on the second-place University of Hartford in a battle with major conference title implications.

It had been more than five years since the Hawks had dropped a conference game at home, and after falling into a 17-point second-half deficit, it looked as though the Terriers were about to be the next victim at Chase Family Arena.

Led by the play of Kinneary and freshman Alex Young, the Terriers slowly chipped away at the Hawks’ advantage, and with eight seconds left in regulation, Dini tossed up a trey from the corner, tying the game at 70-70.

In overtime, Kinneary took over, scoring eight of BU’s 10 extra-frame points en route to an 80-75 victory. The win snapped the Hawks’ five-year streak, and put the Terriers in the driver’s seat heading down the regular-season stretch.

‘We were very fortunate to get out of there with a ‘W,” Greenberg said. ‘I think it was one of those games where after it’s over and weeks go by, I realize now our players were kind of like, ‘We finally did it.’ I really think it took the monkey off their back. It made them think, ‘We are legit. We can win at Hartford.’

‘On the flip side, as a coach, I almost wonder if that was the pinnacle of our season too much. If I could have that game back and go from there, I might, as a coach, go back and realize how important that game was for our players and downplayed it a little bit.’

The Terriers won their last three regular-season games, clinching the regular-season title and the No. 1 seed heading into the conference tournament. In the America East Tournament, BU struggled in its first two games, needing overtime to knock off the eighth-seeded University at Albany and narrowly sneaking past fourth-seeded Binghamton University, 57-53.

Poor free-throw shooting and a general lack of rhythm plagued the team, and Greenberg later admitted the team played ‘tight’ throughout the weekend.

Still, BU found itself with a date in the conference title game ‘-‘- a rematch with Vermont. The Terriers jumped out to an early 13-4 lead, but the Catamounts, led by Pilypaitis, charged back, taking a 33-28 halftime lead before running away in the game’s last 10 minutes. When the dust settled, it was Vermont tossing on the America East conference champion hats and t-shirts, and it was the Terriers left devastated and speechless in the locker room afterward.

‘After the Vermont game, there were a lot of tears,’ Greenberg said. ‘There were so many hearts broken. I just kind of let the girls sit where they were . . . They were obviously really crying, and I just kind of allowed them to keep doing that. I don’t think structure, at that point, was needed.’

With the loss, BU missed out on the chance to make its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2003, but still earned an automatic spot in the Women’s National Invitational Tournament thanks to its regular-season conference crown.

BU kicked off WNIT action against Central Connecticut State University. The Terriers struggled in the first half, trailing the Blue Devils, 41-38, heading into the break. It was obvious that BU, which had suffered through a pair of mediocre practices during the week, had not recovered from the loss to Vermont.

The second half was a different story. The Terriers exploded with a 24-3 run early in the second, clinching the program’s first-ever postseason victory, 79-60.

‘I think we got over [the University of Vermont] at halftime of tonight’s game, in all honesty,’ Greenberg said after defeating CCSU. ‘Every single person, to start that second half, really, really played BU basketball . . . We showed a lot of toughness, and that’s why the outcome was what it was.’

In WNIT second-round action, the Terriers took on a large and talented BC squad. BU put up a good fight, taking a 34-31 lead into the half, but the Eagles’ major size advantage eventually doomed the Terriers. On the strength of a 57-23 rebounding advantage, BC ended BU’s season with a 68-53 victory.

Which brings this story back to its beginning ‘-‘- to a postgame press conference with a coach whose season had just been ended. The 2008-09 campaign had a lot of highs for the Terriers, mixed in with one major low.

But, as Greenberg said, 2008-09 was a success for BU women’s basketball, and as her chuckle suggested, it would be laughable to think any player on this year’s squad could look back on this season with anything but pride and fond memories.

‘I’m proud of every single player,’ Greenberg said after finally suppressing her laughter at the reporter’s question. ‘As I tell them every day, I’m the luckiest coach in the world to get to work with them every single day. They’re funny, they’re smart, they’re witty, they’re creative, they are a lot of things and they work hard.

‘For me, I know in a couple weeks, when I look back at the whole season, there will be a lot of tears like there was last week [after losing the America East championship game]. Again, to not have Christine, Dini, Amarachi and Jes there, I can’t imagine it. They truly left their mark on BU basketball, and when our team returns in the fall, I really hope everyone still feels them because they really did a lot for every underclassmen in that locker room.’