The Boston University women’s basketball team dropped a 74-56 decision Saturday afternoon to Bucknell University. The Bison extended their undefeated run in Patriot League play, while BU dropped its fourth-straight contest.
Against the best team in the conference, the Terriers (1-18, 1-7 Patriot League) actually came out quite strong. After one quarter was in the books, the Terriers held an 18-17 lead over the Bison (14-5, 8-0 Patriot League).
However, the Terriers were unable to keep that lead and got beaten badly in the second, getting outscored 19-7. Head coach Katy Steding attributed her team’s second quarter struggles to an inability to hold the ball and maintain a high intensity level.
“In the second quarter, we let them get tougher than us,” she said. “Defensive breakdowns led to fouls or offensive boards. We just didn’t lock down shooters and that led to many of their points.”
Despite the rough second quarter, which led to BU playing catch up the rest of the game, sophomore forward Meghan Green scored 18 points on a very efficient shooting night. She went 7 of 13 from the field, and drained two of her five 3-pointers.
BU played strong defense in the first half, limiting a talented Bucknell team to only 38.9 percent shooting from the field. The second half was a different story though, as the Bison shot 51.9 percent, proving Steding’s analysis of the game to be quite accurate.
“Meghan Green is a good scorer,” Steding said. “I think she’s one of better post players in the league. She can score inside and she can shoot threes. She’s been working on her defense and I think that showed in spurts, but she is an excellent scorer — nobody contests that.”
Though there were some promising aspects of BU’s game Saturday night, Steding stressed that are certain components that need improvement for her team’s 1-7 Patriot League record to improve.
“Our first priority is that we have to play out possessions longer into the shot clock,” she said. “Our second priority is pushing our transition game so that we are working in attack mode and put more pressure on their defense.”
Steding also expressed disappointment in her team’s rebounding performance, especially in comparison to how it performed in the previous game against Colgate. BU grabbed 22 offensive rebounds against the Raiders (4-14, 2-6 Patriot League). Against Bucknell, however, BU only had 10 offensive boards and were out-rebounded 38-32.
“We gave up 16 offensive boards, and there’s a reason for that because [Bucknell] is very disciplined and they really attack the boards,” Steding said. “Against Colgate, we had 22 offensive rebounds.”
Freshman guard Payton Hauck continued her efficient stretch, scoring nine points. Sophomore forward Kara Sheftic also gave a nice performance with seven points and seven rebounds.
Steding believes that the Terriers have promise, but in order to capitalize on their talent they need to shoot better and do the little things.
“We have to shoot a higher percentage,” she said, “and keep attacking the boards and push the transition.”
