After going 1-2 during a recent three-game tour of the Ivy League, the Boston University women’s basketball team returns home to Case Gymnasium Saturday to face reigning Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference champion Marist College.
BU (3-5) began the stretch with a bang on Dec. 2 against Brown University. After jumping out to a quick 9-0 lead, the Terriers never looked back as four players ‘-‘- senior Aly Hinton, sophomore Alex Young and freshmen Mo Moran and Chantell Alford ‘-‘- hit double digits, including 33 from Young, a BU season-high for an individual player.
That was as good as it got though for BU. Despite holding second-half leads upwards of seven points in their next two tilts against Harvard University and Yale University, the Terriers eventually fell to both teams by the scores of 85-68 and 61-57, respectively.
The loss to the Bulldogs was especially disheartening. With just under three minutes to go in the second half, the Terriers led the dogfight 55-49. However, a 12-2 Yale run over the final 2:55 of the game meant the Terriers left New Haven, Conn. empty-handed.
One major issue in that loss was the number of fouls committed by the Terriers over the course of the game. Overall, BU committed 28 team fouls on the night, and four players ‘-‘- Hinton, senior Maggie McKemie and sophomores Kerry Cashman and Caroline Stewart ‘-‘- committed the maximum of five, resulting in their critical absences from the contest down the stretch.
If this continues against Marist (4-4), the Terriers could be in deeper trouble on Saturday. As of Dec. 6, the Red Foxes were second in the entire nation in free-throw percentage, shooting a spectacular 81.3% from the charity stripe. A 14-of-17 effort at the line on Wednesday against No. 16 Oklahoma University certainly does not hurt that statistic.
That game against the nationally ranked Sooners may have been the Red Foxes’ best all season. Marist led by as many as 10 in the second half before a Sooner comeback, which culminated in a game-tying 3 with 17 seconds left, erased the deficit. Oklahoma went on to finish the home team, 80-71, in overtime.
Other than the near upset, the big story for Marist was the play of senior forward Rachele Fitz, whose 25 points put her over the 2,000-point level for her career, the first Red Fox to reach such a milestone. On the season, the Seven Hills, Ohio native is 10th in the nation in points-per-game (21.7) and eighth in field-goal percentage (63.4%) as of the start of the week.
Fitz and the rest of the returning Red Foxes took on BU last year in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. and defeated the Terriers, 73-62. Fitz put in 28 of her own while the rest of Marist’s returnees this season accounted for all but 19 of the final tally. In fact, the Red Foxes have lost only one player from the team that took the court against the Terriers last season.
Meanwhile, the returning Terriers only scored a total nine of the team’s 62 points from that same game. Of those returnees, Hinton saw the most minutes with 34, but only totaled four points during that time.
Luckily for the Terriers, this year’s version of the BU-Marist matchup will be held at The Roof, a place where the team has absolutely thrived.
So far this season, the Terriers have two wins at The Roof, a 47-35 win over the University of Rhode Island in the home opener and a 83-78 win over Northeastern University the day before Thanksgiving. Since the start of the 2007-2008 season, the Terriers are an astounding 25-1 at home.
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