Looking to find some consistency on its season, the Boston University women’s basketball team will seek its second win in three games when it takes on Loyola University Maryland Saturday afternoon.
BU (5-19, 2-11 Patriot League) is coming off a 67-54 loss to Colgate Wednesday where the Terriers had control for most of the game before letting the Raiders (5-19, 4-9 Patriot League) go on a 19-2 that they never looked back from.
Freshman guard Corrine Williams led the way for BU with 14 points, while contributing three rebounds. On the night, the Terriers had no match for guard Randyll Butler, who poured in a game-high 18 points.
BU coach Katy Steding said one of the areas the Terriers have been attempting to improve in is scoring within the paint since the Terriers’ top 3-point specialist Sarah Hope went down with injury against the Greyhounds (6-18, 4-9 Patriot League) on Jan. 17.
“It’s always been a focal point of ours, getting layups and getting easy touches around the basket so that hasn’t really changed,” Steding said. “We’ve had to work on getting other people involved with layups and easy touches and I think we’ve been extremely successful with that, what we haven’t been really successful in is putting those attempts down.”
The last time the teams matched up, the Greyhounds were victorious by a 63-53 margin in a game where both teams shot near 37 percent from the field.
In the game, freshman Bri Betz-White finished with a career-high 23 points. Almost half of those points came from the free throw line as the guard went 11-for-12 on the night.
Betz-White is second on the team in points scored, trailing only junior Colleen Marshall, who has 12.8 points per game to go along with a team-leading 54 steals.
Loyola will be attempting to snap a four game losing streak, in which they have lost by an average of 10 points.
In their most recent contest Wednesday, the Greyhounds lost to Lafayette College by a score of 69-63. The Greyhounds were within three points with 9:55 left in the second half, but could never close the gap.
Steding said she is putting more emphasis on getting her squad to execute at a consistent level than stopping the Greyhound attack.
“It sounds silly, but less focus on them and more focus on us,” Steding said. “We’ve got to take care of the ball, we’ve got to continue to make rebounding a priority, and we’ve got to get players in the post and give them the ball to score.”
One of the areas where the Terriers have room for improve in is controlling the basketball, as they rank last in the Patriot League in turnover margin (-4.58) and committed 23 turnovers against Colgate.
”One of the things we talked about is being able to move to the open spot and it sounds like basic basketball, which in a sense it is but we sometimes have a tendency to stand and watch somebody who has the ball make something happen, instead of making something happen off the ball,” Steding said. “That’s a difficult concept for players that are used to 1-on-1 attacks.”
Steding and the Terriers will hope that Williams continues her hot streak against the Greyhounds. While she only averages 5.1 points for the whole season, Williams has come on of late for BU, having reached double-digits in each of BU’s last two games.
“Oh gosh, well I can’t say enough about Corrine,” she said. “She’s so steady, for a freshman,” Steding said. “She doesn’t do everything right, she’d be the first one to tell you that, but she works really hard and I’ve never seen her rattled or not know what to do. It’s a reassuring presence to have for her teammates.”
