The Boston University women’s basketball team defeated the University of Massachusetts Lowell Riverhawks 76-47 in Tuesday night’s season opener, earning new head coach Melissa Graves her first win as a Terrier basketball coach.
“Getting that first win is always the goal. You really want to make a statement,” junior guard Sydney Johnson said in a postgame press conference. “We kind of put our league on notice that, even though we have a new head coach, we’re still gonna come out, play hard, play as a team. We’re still going to carry over the success we had from last year.”
Twelve players on the Terriers’ roster accumulated minutes, and 11 of those players scored. Leading the pack was Johnson, who finished the night with 13 points and a team-leading five steals. Directly following Johnson in points, redshirt senior guard Emily Esposito scored 11 of them, including nine from 3-pointers and two from free throws.
“We have a different style of play, but I think we’ve really taken that in stride,” Esposito said in a postgame press conference. “We enjoy sharing the ball, and everyone’s contributing. I think that’s a testament to Coach [Graves] and the offense she’s put in, so very proud and honored to be a part of that [first win].”
The Riverhawks generated some offense but were not able to get the ball in the net often, only scoring 10 points to the Terriers’ 25 in the third quarter. They found themselves down 57-40 at the end of the third.
The Terriers maintained pressure on the Riverhawks, utilizing a newly implemented press, and rebounded 41 times — 11 of which were offensive and 30 that were defensive — throughout the game to earn the win.
“We have an unselfish culture, and when we share the basketball, we look really, really good,” Graves said in a postgame press conference. “It was a total team effort.”
As the Terriers secured a double-digit-point cushion with three minutes left in the third quarter, the Case Gym crowd roared a little more than before after every point, every takeaway and every secured rebound.
“Playing in front of fans again obviously was really exciting,” Graves said, recalling the fanless gyms that surrounded the court during last year’s COVID-affected season.
The Terriers will look to keep rolling as they visit Princeton University on Sunday afternoon.
