Over the last month and a half, the Boston University women’s basketball team had been living a dream season.
Before Wednesday night, the Terriers (15-9, 10-5 America East) had won 10 of their last 12 games – the only losses coming in two tough matchups with the conference’s top team, the University of Maine.
BU was scoring at will (first in the league, 68.5 points per game), frustrating opposing teams (eighth in the nation, 12.7 steals per contest) and quickly establishing itself as the No. 2 team in the America East. With Binghamton University on tap for Saturday in a game to further distance themselves from the rest of the conference, the Terriers were set to breeze through into the conference tournament in two weeks.
Then, when it looked as if the Terriers’ dreamy play could not be stopped, the alarm went off – in the form of a 72-70 loss to Stony Brook University, which moved into sixth-place in the conference with the win. In a game that BU coach Margaret McKeon called one of the team’s two “bad losses” this season (the other being a 91-74 drubbing at the hands of Harvard University), the Terriers shot just under 38 percent from the floor and were outrebounded by an undersized Seawolves team.
With the loss, BU dropped into a tie with the aforementioned Bearcats (15-8, 10-5) for the second spot in the league. But as this weekend’s game takes on even more significance, McKeon said Wednesday’s loss might actually be a good thing for her team.
“My only concern is that we wake up,” McKeon said after practice Thursday. “[The loss to Stony Brook] was a wake-up call. And hopefully it’s a wake-up call we’ve learned from, and I think we will.”
And with a Binghamton team that gives up only 58.4 points per game (third in the conference) rolling into “The Roof” Saturday afternoon, the Terriers can’t afford to hit the snooze button. The last time these two squads met, back on Jan. 11 in Vestal, N.Y., the Bearcats had total control in a 74-65 win, dishing out a season-high 20 assists while causing 11 steals, their second highest total of the year. Senior guard Kate Townley set up 10 baskets and pulled down eight rebounds on her own to lead her team to its first conference victory.
Since that game, McKeon said she has emphasized the importance of defense to her team, and for a while, it certainly was working – the Terriers have given up more than 70 points only twice, one of those games coming on Wednesday. But in its past three games, BU has stumbled through second halves, allowing its opponents to score an average of 41 points. Those types of numbers, McKeon said, especially concern her.
“We’re doing pretty well in the first half, we’re just not carrying it over into the second half,” the fifth-year coach said. “I think that that’s something I’ve made them aware of, and if we can put two halves together on the defensive end, it doesn’t have to be a long night for us in this conference.”
Despite its unconscious play as of late, long nights may not be something BU is used to, but with only three games remaining in the regular season, McKeon said she expects her team to be up-and-at-’em come Saturday’s tip-off.
“I know we’ll come with it for 40 minutes against Binghamton because we’ve been doing that all year long,” she said. “I just think that we can’t let things slip away in the fact of preparing ourselves.”
Because with another loss this weekend, BU may find itself sleep-walking into the playoffs – and right into a long, sleepless offseason.