After a buzzer beater from junior guard Sarah Hope, the Boston University women’s basketball team got the best of the United States Naval Academy Thursday night, winning 51-49 in a dramatic fashion.
While BU (2-19, 2-8 Patriot League) has struggled to stage a comeback at times this season, it showed resilience against the Midshipmen (10-11, 4-6 Patriot League). The game-winning shot came when graduate student guard Troi Melton found a cutting Hope, who lofted in the shot into the basket.
Hope’s game-winning bucket gave her high scorer honors for the game, as her 15 points, along with Melton’s 10 off the bench and junior forward Meghan Green’s 13 points, accounted for 38 of the Terriers’ 51 points.
Going into the game, both teams seemed better matched on paper than what their opposing records suggested, and it showed early on. Each side came out firing, and Navy took a 16-10 lead at the end of the first quarter. Despite that, Green dished in seven points, and the team was shooting 50 percent from behind the arc.
The hot shooting that opened this matchup quickly began to cool off, and after a quarter in which both squads shot below 31 percent from the field, the Midshipmen were up by five at halftime.
While the Terriers were playing hard-fought defense in the opening half, Navy took a 42-32 lead going into the fourth quarter.
“They kept drilling shots in our face, so we had to continue to make subs to kind of shore up our defensive efforts because we can score points or we can stop people,” BU head coach Katy Steding said. “Calling people in for offense and defense helped at keeping things close to where we can be in that situation at the end of the game.”
BU showed no sign of lapses during the final quarter, and that’s when the comeback started in full force. The momentum had swung toward the Terriers’ side, and after buckets from Melton and Green gave them a 47-44 lead, Danielle Poblarp responded with a 3-pointer to tie the game at 47 apiece.
Then with 27 seconds left, a Navy gaffe off an inbound play fell right under its basket to freshman guard Payton Hauck, who laid it up and in to give her team the 49-47 lead.
The Midshipmen made their way up the court, looking to either send the game into overtime or complete their season sweep of the Terriers. Freshman Christina Potts, who finished the game as Navy’s leading scorer with eight points, took a contested layup that was off the mark, only for senior Peri Curtis to lay it back in and tie the game up at 49 with one second remaining.
WBB: Check out Hope's final play to win the game! Do we have another #SCtop10 play of the week??? #ProudToBU pic.twitter.com/Tibt9TdP81
— BU Game Day (@BUGameDay) February 5, 2016
Then Melton found a leaping Hope for the game-winner, and the rest is history. Steding said Hope’s a great 3-point shooter, but knows all too well she’s not a one-dimensional player.
“Sarah brings a number of weapons,” Steding said. “Not just her shot, but she is game savvy. She has a very high basketball IQ, and she really does understand what needs to happen in different situations. She brings way more than just her 3-point shot. She brings leadership, tenacity and her teammates love her.”
