Dog-eat-dog world

It’s been a long time since an America East player has had a stretch of dominant performances quite like this.

Monday afternoon, Boston University women’s basketball senior co-captain Jesyka Burks-Wiley was named the America East Player of the Week for the fourth week in a row, becoming the first player to do so since Drexel University’s Michelle Maslowski brought home the Player of the Week hardware for five consecutive weeks in 2001.

Burks-Wiley will begin to strive for five tonight when the Terriers (12-6, 6-0 AE) play host to the University of Maryland-Baltimore County at Case Gymnasium. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m.

UMBC (12-7, 4-2) couldn’t have picked a worse time to run into Burks-Wiley and the Terriers. The Kansas City, Mo., native’s latest outburst ‘-‘- a career-best 32-point explosion in an 87-72 win over the University of Maine on Saturday ‘-‘- was just the latest in a string of supreme performances for the forward.

Burks-Wiley has averaged 23.0 points and 9.3 rebounds per game in conference play, both America East bests, and has dropped 20-plus points in four of six conference games.

‘I mean, she’s just been playing so great,’ BU coach Kelly Greenberg said. ‘Jes has always been a scorer. She’s just been getting more opportunities [the past six games]. She’s playing with high energy, and she has high expectations of herself.’

Greenberg credited Burks-Wiley’s recent success to two key points.

First, Burks-Wiley has matured a great deal, both as a basketball player and as a person. On the player side, Greenberg pointed to Burks-Wiley’s improved play on the glass ‘-‘- she’s averaging 7.3 rebounds per game after pulling down 5.8 as a junior.

As a person, Burks-Wiley, who serves as co-captain alongside fellow senior Christine Kinneary, has channeled her loquacious personality into becoming, by the accounts of coaches and teammates, a terrific leader on and off the court.

The other key, according to Greenberg, has been the play of Burks-Wiley’s supporting cast. If opponents focus their defense on slowing Burks-Wiley in the paint, BU can kick the ball out to one of the conference’s best 3-ballers, senior Kristi Dini (see Dini’s 23 points against the University of Massachusetts-Amherst on Jan. 2).

Manage to slow both Dini and Burks-Wiley, and you’ll have to face the wrath of Kinneary, whose recently improved driving game has punished opponents to the tune of 11.3 points per game, including a 22-point outburst against Binghamton University.

Then there’s senior Amarachi Umez-Eronini and junior Aly Hinton. Umez-Eronini, arguably the best defensive guard in the conference, scored 19 points in a pivotal matchup with the University of Hartford on Jan. 21. Meanwhile, Hinton’s 35-point eruption ‘-‘- off the bench, no less ‘-‘- in a Nov. 19, 2007 matchup with Northeastern University speaks to her tremendous scoring potential.

The 6-foot-1 forward’s supremacy has extended beyond just her play in the paint. Burks-Wiley’s efficiency from the charity stripe ‘-‘- Burks-Wiley is fourth in the conference in free-throw percentage (.795) ‘-‘- has served to further her scoring potential. Her ability to convert from the line is particularly important considering America East opponents have sent her to the stripe a conference-high 54 times.

In Saturday’s contest with Maine, Burks-Wiley converted 14 of 15 free-throw attempts, including nine of 10 in the first half. Maine’s hack-a-Shaq approach to defending the forward backfired, as Burks-Wiley converted free throw after free throw. By game’s end, BU had ridden Burks-Wiley’s back to the tune of an 87-72 victory, and three Maine forwards had fouled out trying to defend BU in the paint.

‘I always hope that we have a team that gets to the free-throw line,’ Greenberg said. ‘It does make such a big difference because it also means you’re getting the ball inside. Certainly against Maine, to get 15 attempts is really unbelievable.

‘[Burks-Wiley is] going up strong, or she can put it on the floor once she catches it inside and use the whip, is what we call it. And while she’s doing that she picks up some nice quickness and that helps her to pick up some fouls and then finish. I really think her high energy and her focus right now are off the charts.’

If there’s any America East player who has the right to gripe about the buzz surrounding Burks-Wiley, it’s UMBC junior Carlee Cassidy. The 5-foot-9 guard is tied for sixth in the country with 22.2 points per game, including 27 points in a 78-63 win over Binghamton University last Saturday.

The sniper from Syracuse, N.Y., leads the conference with 161 trey attempts on the season, and ranks sixth in 3-point percentage (34.8 percent) among America East players with at least 50 attempts.

‘[Cassidy] definitely likes to do a lot of things off the dribble, as well as shoot the 3,’ Greenberg said when asked about Cassidy’s offensive versatility. ‘She takes a lot of shots, to be honest with you. I mean, she has so many more attempts than anybody in the league.’

Cassidy’s 331 field-goal attempts trump the nearest America East competitor (Burks-Wiley, 238) by a remarkable 93 tries, and a lot of her opportunities are a direct result of UMBC’s up-tempo pace.

The pace is similar to the run-and-gun style the Terriers employ, meaning points will be aplenty at The Roof tonight.

BU and UMBC currently sit one-two atop the America East points-per-game list. Nine combined Terriers and Retrievers can find their names among the conference’s top 30 scorers on the season, including four BU players among the conference’s top 15.

‘I’m a little anxious to see what will happen,’ Greenberg said about the expected pace of tonight’s game. ‘We’re not going to go into the game and think ‘slow it down.’ We’re going to play our style, and that’s when [Kinneary and Umez-Eronini] are at their best.

‘In all honesty, I think that we’re the more in-shape team, but I’m anxious to see what happens. I have no idea what to expect.’