Just three games into the season, the Boston University women’s basketball team is trying to find its identity.
The starting lineup is still a work in progress, and BU coach Kelly Greenberg is in the process of figuring out how to best utilize her five freshmen.
But on Wednesday night, the Terriers proved they could be a defensive force in a 47-35 win over the University of Rhode Island.
The Terriers allowed fewer than 40 points for the first time since 2008, when they beat the University of New Hampshire, 66-39. For a while BU looked like it might challenge the school record for fewest points allowed in a game ‘- 26 points to the College of the Holy Cross in 1977.’
The BU defense was especially stifling in the first half, allowing only nine points to the Rams. URI shot just 17 percent from the field and 0-for-5 from 3-point territory, turning the ball over 19 times during the first 20 minutes.
‘I think since UMass [last weekend] we’ve really tried to pick up our ball pressure,’ junior guard Kat Briggs, who scored eight points and had two assists, said. ‘Ball pressure is going to help our forwards and put the pressure on their guards so that they’re not getting open looks and they’re not feeling comfortable with the ball. And I think that helped us in the first half.
‘[Coach Greenberg] was telling us to keep pressuring the ball and try not to get beat, and keep pressuring the ball as much as possible because we have help.’
BU’s defensive pressure left the Rams confused and out of sync, forcing turnovers that the Terriers turned into 17 points in the first half. The Terriers finished the half with six steals and constantly had their hands in the Rams’ passing lanes.’
‘I think that if we keep pushing the ball handlers,’ Briggs said, ‘it’s causing more difficulty getting [the ball] inside and they can’t see anything. So, I think it’s helping us everywhere and not just on the ball handler.’
BU used a combination of 2-3 zone and man-to-man defense to keep the URI offense in check.
‘[Switching from zone to man-to-man] keeps the other team on their toes,’ junior Krystyn McIntyre, who had three points, said. ‘We don’t want anyone to get too comfortable with one thing, and we’re very confident in both our 2-3 and our man defense.’
Freshman guard Chantell Alford showed tenacity on defense with two steals and two blocks in just 11 minutes of playing time. But with five minutes to go in the first half, she took an elbow to the nose and left the game. Alford accounted for seven of the Terriers’ first 13 points.
In the second half, URI outscored the Terriers 26-20, but the game was never within the Rams’ reach. They turned the ball over 13 more times for a game total of 32. The Terriers tallied 13 points off those turnovers in the second stanza.
The Rams finished the game shooting just 23.5 percent from the field, and BU finished with 14 steals. URI is a team that is weak on the offensive side of the ball ‘- it was outscored 74-48 by Fairfield University on Nov. 14. But the Terriers felt good about their performance, despite the Rams’ sorry offensive reputation.
‘I think right now our offense is struggling a bit,’ Briggs said. ‘Our big players like [senior] Aly [Hinton] and some of the other players are struggling offensively, but I think our defense is what is helping us get fired up offensively and it’s keeping us going.
‘I think holding them to nine points [in the first half] like we did helps us take the pressure off offensively and helps us just focus on running offense and it doesn’t put the pressure [on you to] make the shot.” ‘ ‘
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
