Terriers witnessed the birth of several hoop stars

(The following is part two of a two-part series, reviewing the 2000-01 women’s basketball season.)

A common cliche among coaches and athletes is that the new season begins the moment the previous one ends. And although the NCAA forbids coaches from running formal practices with their players during the offseason, athletes at this level must work on their own during this time to become better players. Often times, this takes the form of a planned regimen in which specific areas are targeted.

The members of the Boston University women’s basketball team are no exception.

“I can’t be with the kids 24-7 during the offseason,” said BU coach Margaret McKeon. “We don’t have the 20 hours of practice each week. You have to trust that the kids will work on their own on the things that we discussed in order to improve individually.”

And with the 2000-01 season now concluded, the uniforms and basketballs put away, and the bleachers in The Roof locked up for the summer, let’s look back on how some of the Terriers did this year, and what they need to work on in order to improve their game in time for the resumption of practice on Oct. 15.

After struggling to win eight games last year with the leftover players from Coach Christine Basile’s era, McKeon finally got to bring in her own recruiting class this year. And after a year filled with ups and downs, it looks like McKeon may have found a group of players that can bring the program to the top of the America East conference.

The player that got the most press clippings this year was freshman guard Katie Terhune, who came to BU after an outstanding senior season at Warren Hills High School in western New Jersey in which she scored 21.7 points per game and received Third Team All-State honors. In her first weekend of college ball, Terhune made a great first impression, scoring a team freshman record 30 points in an overtime loss to Miami University (Ohio). She finished the season as one of the highest scoring freshmen in the country with 16.2 points per game and led the conference with 88.3 percent marksmanship from the charity stripe. But for all of her accomplishments this year, McKeon sees a lot of room for improvement.

“What a lot of people don’t understand is that Katie has a lot to work on,” McKeon said. “She had to be able to come off screens looking to shoot. She has to become a major three-point threat, which she is capable of doing. She also has to work on her ball handling and her quickness. If Katie can improve her game and work on those things, she can be a great player.”

After spending her playing career as a point guard at national powerhouse Christ the King High School in New York and at St. John’s University, McKeon probably felt that throwing freshman point guard Courtney Jones to the wolves so quickly was not a desirable option. But the season-ending injury to junior Pilar Verde forced McKeon to turn the position of floor general over to Jones. Needless to say, there were some significant growing pains during the course of the season, but McKeon said she liked a lot of what she saw.

“Courtney has improved a lot over the year,” McKeon said. “Being a floor general is a huge responsibility for a freshman. I think that her three-point shot could become a little more consistent, and she needs to work on breaking down defenses in half-court sets to create opportunities for other players. When you go from high school to college, a lot of the passing lanes that you’re used to having disappear due to height, quickness and strength. You can get away with a lot of things in high school that you can’t get away with at this level. Courtney had to learn that the hard way, but that’s just going to make her better.”

In fact, Jones has improved so much over the course of the year that it could cause a dilemma for McKeon and the coaching staff when Verde returns next fall. Verde will be a 23-year-old senior, but Jones will have had a full year of experience running the team, which Verde will not.

“That’s a good problem to have,” McKeon said. “Pilar is the type of player who doesn’t need to start. She’ll do what it takes to improve our team. Those are things that I’ll worry about in the fall.”

Freshman center Marisa Moseley and junior forward Dia Dufault both came on toward the end of the year. Moseley had the best game of her short collegiate career in BU’s biggest win of the season, scoring 17 points in a 61-54 win at the University of Maine on Feb. 23, the Terriers’ first win at Maine’s Alfond Arena since 1993. Dufault finished the season averaging eight points per game, and was tied for third in the conference in steals with an average of two a game.

“Marisa has a bright future,” McKeon said. “If she can improve her upper body strength and become a consistent rebounder, I think that she can be a very good player in this conference.”

Another player that saw significant playing time down the stretch was junior forward Anne Nelson. When players like Dufault or senior center Alison Dixon got into foul trouble or needed a break, Nelson came in and gave some solid minutes, although not especially on the offensive end.

“I think that Anne can be a force for us interior-defensive wise, and that’s an area in which we need help,” McKeon said. “But I also feel that Anne has to get stronger and feel more confident in her offensive game, especially on the low block.”

At the beginning of this season, Dixon’s numbers were below her career average as opposing defenses denied her the ball and forced BU’s freshmen to beat them from the outside. When players like Terhune and Jones started doing that, Dixon began getting more opportunities inside, which resulted in some strong performances in the final games of her collegiate career. In her last home game, on March 1 against cross-town rival Northeastern University, Dixon scored a season-high 24 points, 16 of them in the second half. She leaves BU with 1,630 career points, second only to Debbie Miller-Palmore on the team’s career scoring list.

“When you lose someone who has been an impact scorer in the conference for so long, you have to look for someone to pick up the slack,” McKeon said. “It could come from everyone just doing a little more, or just one player. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

While Dixon certainly will be missed, BU will return everyone else next year. They will be joined by a two-player recruiting class that is ranked first in the America East Conference and 24th out of all Division I schools with two recruits or less, featuring Larissa Parr and Adrienne Norris.

Parr is a 6-foot-1 power forward from Eau Claire, Wis., Norris is a 6-foot small forward from Delafield, Wis., a suburb of Milwaukee. Both of them will provide some much-needed size and rebounding ability for the Terriers inside.

“Our recruits have done terrific this year,” McKeon said. “I expect them to contribute here next year.”

If the players improve during the offseason, and the recruits live up to their billing, BU might just have a chance to contend in what is expected to be a wide open conference race next year.

“I think that we can get into that mix,” McKeon said. “The freshmen have to improve and play like sophomores. The veteran players who are juniors now will be seniors and have three years of experience. And then the incoming freshmen have to make an impact. I think that we can be very dangerous next year.”