Many things were new for the Boston University women’s basketball team in the 2014-15 season. However, while the conventional wisdom says that what’s new is always better, the Terriers still had trouble breaching the win column last year.
They had a new coach in Katy Steding, a new roster with seven underclassmen and a new program-high in games lost. In addition to its 25 losses, last season’s team tied the 1998-99 squad for fewest wins in program history with just five. Steding is now in her second season at the helm, and is confident things are starting to turn around.
“We’ve been busy,” Steding said. “There have been a ton of changes, and it’s been terrific. We’re having some fun.”
While the team’s record was unimpressive last year, losing by an average of more than 10 points per game and finishing with the second lowest-scoring offense in the Patriot League, what it doesn’t show is how the team improved as the season progressed.
In her first five games, then-redshirt junior guard Troi Melton averaged seven points per game, but in her last five, Melton more than doubled that number, scoring 14.4 points per contest.
“Midway through the season last year, [Melton] got to a point where she was really frustrated with the way she was playing,” Steding said. “So she just really rolled up her sleeves and got back to basics. … Towards the end of the season she really came on for us. So we’re going to ride that.”
This season, Melton and fellow guard Clodagh Scannell will be the only seniors on the team.
Also heavily improved are sophomore forward Kara Sheftic and sophomore guard Corrine Williams. Both featured in 28 games last year and scored around five points per game. Standing at 6-foot-1, Sheftic also led the team in blocks, while Williams led all freshmen with 34 assists. Continuing into their sophomore campaigns, both should continue to see improvement.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, nobody got off to a hotter start than sophomore forward Meghan Green last season. She led the team in points in 11 of their 30 matchups and rebounding in 13.
While youth and inexperience were the storylines throughout the previous season, they should no longer pose much of an issue for the Terrier squad. The BU roster only held 10 players during the 2014-15 season. This year, all players will return except Mollie McKendrick, whom the team lost to graduation.
Steding admits that last season it was difficult to recruit new players while simultaneously trying to foster relationships with a new team.
“Now, I think having the nine people back,” Steding said, “those relationships are really solid. … You can be really straightforward and honest with a returner, which isn’t quite as comfortable with someone you’re still getting to know.”
Along with nine familiar faces, this year’s squad will feature four incoming freshmen: guards Payton Hauck and Lauren Spearman, forward Naiyah Thompson and 6-foot-5-inch Finnish center Milla Ekstrom.
“Lauren is a really good shooter,” Steding said. “Even better than I remember from recruiting, so we want to take advantage of that. … And Payton is just so explosive to the rim that I sometimes rub my hands together when she gets the ball by herself on the wing, and I say, ‘What’s going to happen? This is going to be awesome.’”
Between returning players and rookies, the Terriers have gone from a team overburdened with youth to a well-balanced collective, which has Steding feeling confident. She praised her returning players for their work ethic multiple times and hopes to build on their offseason progress as they gear up to start the season this Friday.
“[Our returning players] have all worked really hard to take their games individually to the next level,” Steding said. “Hopefully those guys ride the wave and continue to keep progressing.”
