One week after shellacking Brown University, 81-54, the Boston University women’s basketball team will play host to yet another Ivy League foe tonight, Harvard University, at Case Gymnasium.
The Crimson (4-3) present a tough matchup for the Terriers (4-4). Led by a pair of 6-foot-3 forwards in senior Katie Rollins and sophomore Emma Markley, Harvard has out-rebounded opponents by an average of seven boards per game. Rollins and Markley have accounted for 7.0 and 7.9 rebounds per game, respectively, and also rank as the team’s top two scorers with 10.4 and 16.6 points per contest, respectively.
‘We’re very much well aware that [Harvard] is forward dominated,’ BU coach Kelly Greenberg said. ‘Rollins is very big ‘-‘- bigger than any of us. We just have to be very smart by taking away some angles, so they don’t get any easy passes into the post.
‘Markley is a little bit different ‘-‘- she’s very deceiving. She’s very quick and athletic and likes to run the floor. So they’re very different forwards. We just have to be very aware of who we’re playing and, again, as we’ve talked about the last few days, how we’re playing them.’
One of the major keys for the Terriers will be keeping the ball out of Rollins and Markley’s hands, and the team’s best chance of accomplishing that will be to rely on the defensive play of senior guards Christine Kinneary, Amarachi Umez-Eronini and Kristi Dini.
The three-headed defensive monster has accounted for 41 of BU’s 64 steals on the season and was primarily responsible for BU’s 29 points off turnovers in last week’s win over Brown.
However, most of the pressure will be on BU’s forwards ‘-‘- none of whom stand taller than 6-foot-2. Grabbing boards has been a problem for the Terriers so far this season, as the team has been out-rebounded by an average of five rebounds per game. Sophomore Kerry Cashman, coming off a career-best 10-rebound performance against Brown, will need to have another big game if BU is to keep up with Harvard’s twin towers.
‘[Kerry’s] been coming off the bench, and as I said last week, she has responded well,’ Greenberg said. ‘She gives us great energy, she’s in great shape and she doesn’t get tired. She plays hard and she’s our big presence.
‘We expect her to be a major factor for us [tonight] because [Harvard’s] so big. So long as she doesn’t foul or get too excited about stopping them and stays within herself, she’ll play a major part [tonight].’
On the other end of the floor, BU will look to pick up where it left off last week, when the Terriers shot 52.4 percent from the field and 35 percent from beyond the arc. Kinneary led all scorers with 18 points and added eight assists, while Dini went 4-for-7 from 3-point land on her way to a 16-point performance.
It was the fifth time this season that Dini had hit four or more treys, and her execution from deep improved her 3-point percentage to .370. The sharpshooter has made 27 of her 32 baskets from 3-point land, but as Greenberg was quick to point out, there are more facets of Dini’s game that the senior has yet to tap into.
‘Dini has a lot she can bring to the table for us,’ Greenberg said. ‘She tends to rely [on the 3]. She does have the ability to put it on the floor and create her own shot, but she just relies so much on her 3. Right now, her coaches and teammates are really trying to get Dini to go to the more direct parts of her arsenal because she has it.
‘Certainly, if she didn’t have it, we wouldn’t be doing that. But she can put it on the floor and can go to the hole a little bit more. If she can keep doing that, and then also be able to knock down the 3 as she does, we really think she can take us a long way.’
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