With the regular season rolling down to its final two weeks, the Boston University women’s basketball team looks to get an important victory at home against Stony Brook University.
For the first and only time this season, the Terriers (13-11, 9-3 America East) go down the road to the friendly confines of Agannis Arena to host a basketball doubleheader along with the men’s team. Their guests are the Seawolves of SBU (8-17, 6-7), who will look to avenge an earlier loss at home to BU.
It’s worth watching to see if the team’s 6-3 record at Case Gymnasium transfers to the larger setting.
“It’s going to be interesting because we haven’t practiced there,” said BU coach Kelly Greenberg. “In some ways it will be like an away game. I don’t really know what to expect.”
BU enters the game with a stranglehold of the conference’s third seed in the conference tournament. The Terriers’ 9-3 AE record puts them three-and-a-half games ahead of fourth place Stony Brook. Leaders of the pack Hartford University and the University of Vermont pace the standings with 12-0 and 11-2 AE records, respectively.
“I haven’t resigned to the third seed yet,” Greenberg said. “We’re going to take care of what we can control and hope that others falter. We won’t be any lower but if anything we can move up.”
In the two teams’ previous meeting in Stony Brook, N.Y., BU captured a decisive 75-61 victory in Greenberg’s 100th win as coach of BU. Sophomore guard Alex Young led the team with 25 points, while freshman guard Chantell Alford added 22.
BU will look to continue receiving prolific scoring totals from its guards. Alford, who ranks second in the league with 15.8 points per game, needs 76 more points this season to set a new BU freshman scoring record. Joining her on the leaderboard is Young, fifth in America East with 14.0 ppg, and freshman Mo Moran, 10th with 12.9 ppg.
Stony Brook’s main scoring threat remains junior forward Kirsten Jeter. Jeter leads the team with averages of 13.7 points, 7.4 rebounds and 2.1 steals per game. No other player on the team averages more than 10 ppg.
In preparation for the playoffs, BU will look to develop more consistency than they have shown recently. A second half 17-2 run saved the Terriers from a disappointing loss to the cellar-dwelling University at Albany, as BU claimed a narrow 69-65 victory.
“We had an interesting road game on Saturday,” Greenberg said. “I think it woke us up like, “Hey we need to play for real.'”
Greenberg believes her team is good enough to stand alone at the end of the season. Four games remain on the schedule, including Hartford, and the coach is clear as to what her goals are.
“We’re really looking at these last four games as a means to catapult to the top of the tournament,” she said. “In my mind, we can take the whole thing and that’s our goal. If we can take care of these last four games, maybe Vermont drops. Just to get some doubt in people’s minds is what we want.”
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