The Boston University women’s basketball team stumbled twice in the last three days, losing to No. 20 St. John’s University on Saturday at home before falling again on the road against Northeastern University, to put the team on a three-game losing streak.
The Terriers (2-7) began the weekend with a tough home loss against the Red Storm (7-1) by a score of 66-42. Despite a stronger second-half performance, they could not overcome the huge deficit they fell into during the first half.
“They’re in the top 25 for a reason,” said BU coach Kelly Greenberg.
The Red Storm went on a 21-3 run midway through the first half and never looked back. The only points the Terriers scored over that span came on a sophomore guard Kristen Sims 3-pointer after eight consecutive points by the Red Storm.
The St. John’s defense forced a lot of turnovers from the Terriers, mainly by using a full-court press defense. BU had 13 of their 21 turnovers in the first half, and 17 of the turnovers were steals by the Red Storm’s swarming defense.
“Every single turnover turned into an open layup for them, which means we weren’t able to get into our half-court set as much, and they got easy baskets,” Greenberg said.
One reason the BU offense struggled was the lockdown defense on BU forwards Kerry Cashman and Caroline Stewart. The two were shut out on the offensive end, which resulted in only 12 points in the paint for the Terriers.
“Unfortunately I thought their team did a great job taking them out. They didn’t let them get good looks and they were physical with them,” Greenberg said. “Our toughest two players are Caroline Stewart and Kerry Cashman.”
Some positives of the game came from the bench, including nine points from freshman guard Melissa Gallo and seven points from Sims. The two played 18 and 19 minutes respectively, and were sparks for a team that struggled all night.
“They’ve earned it in practice,” Greenberg said. “We really wanted to put [Sims] in because she plays very fearless.”
Sims and Gallo played well enough to earn themselves a start in the next game against Northeastern (3-4), and Sims began the game with the first five Terrier points. However, the lineup change was not enough to earn BU the win.
Against the Huskies, the Terriers kept themselves in the game until the half but faltered as the game went on. The team struggled against another press defense that forced 21 turnovers from BU.
“We are really going to face the press defense now because people are beginning to see it as a weakness for us,” Greenberg said.
Sophomore guards Chantell Alford and Mo Moran began the game on the bench instead of their usual starting spots but didn’t lose any production. Both played more than 30 minutes and were tied for the team lead in points with 12 each for the game.
“Alford and Moran did not start because we felt like we needed to jumpstart them a little,” Greenberg said. “But on the bench I talked to them about what was going on out there and how we were being defended.”
Another player that came off the bench for the Terriers in this game was senior guard Kat Briggs, who played 16 minutes against the Huskies.
“Kat plays pretty good defense,” Greenberg said. “Alex wasn’t really stopping anyone, and as a coach right now, things aren’t going really well so you look for different answers.”
BU will look to end this three-game losing streak on Wednesday at 5 p.m. against University of Massachusetts at Case Gymnasium.
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