The Boston University women’s basketball team will look for its second consecutive win on the road when it travels to face the United States Military Academy Wednesday night.
The last time the Terriers (3-23, 3-12 Patriot League) played an away game, they emerged with a 71-58 victory over Colgate University. The victory also served as Katy Steding’s first road win as BU head coach.
A major reason BU came out on top was the stellar play of sophomore guard Meghan Doogan. She dropped a career-high 23 points, the most of any BU player this season. Another key to BU’s victory was the play of graduate student guard Troi Melton and junior guard Courtney Latham, both of whom recorded 11 rebounds.
BU clicked on all cylinders against the Raiders (4-21, 2-13 Patriot League), as it shot 43.3 percent from the field and held their opponents under 30 percent.
Despite BU’s best offensive performance of the season, Steding said she believes the win over the Raiders was all about defense.
“Defense started us, defense kept us going and we created offense from our defense,” she said.
However, Army (23-2, 14-1 Patriot League) is tied atop the Patriot League standings, and Colgate occupies last place in the conference.
Furthermore, the Black Knights lead the conference in scoring offense, scoring defense and scoring margin. They also lead the conference in field goal percentage for and against, shooting 44.5 percent from the floor while holding opponents to under 35 percent. Army’s dominance continues, as it leads the conference in assists and both offensive and defensive 3-point field goal percentage.
The Black Knights’ offense is paced by senior Kelsey Minato, who leads the Patriot League in scoring, 3-point field goal percentage and assist to turnover ratio. The Black Knights and Minato’s play has impressed Steding, and she said a sound defensive game plan could limit their collective damage.
“Minato’s going to get some points,” Steding said. “The thing is, you can’t let a kid that averages in the low 20s have a 30- or 35-point game if you want to win. She makes everyone around her about four to six points better, at least.”
The Patriot League team most similar to the Black Knights is Bucknell University, which is tied for first place as well.
Coincidentally, the Terriers’ most recent opponent was the Bison (20-6, 14-1 Patriot League). In that matchup at Case Gym, the Terriers fell 72-59. BU was competitive for the entire first half, but once again, one bad 10-minute quarter doomed the Terriers. They were outscored by 13, the final margin of defeat, in that timespan.
Steding said BU cannot afford to have a lackluster stretch like that against Army.
“We can’t allow the [halftime] break to take us out of it,” Steding said. “Even Bucknell didn’t really make adjustments to their game, except they went harder. We’ve got to come out [of halftime] with some fire in our bellies.”
While Minato will be the focal point of the BU defense, Steding said the Terriers must remain disciplined and not allow other Army players to get open shots.
“Even if you try to limit Minato’s scoring, you can’t let other players have career nights against you,” Steding said. “It’s a matter of rotating people on Minato so we have fresh legs on her at all times, trying to limit her touches, but also making sure we’re covering everyone else.”
