The Boston University women’s basketball team tied a program record for consecutive wins with its eighth when it handed the University of Maryland-Baltimore County an 84-57 beatdown last night at Case Gymnasium.
The Terriers’ (13-6, 7-0 America East) 27-point win tied their largest margin of victory this season ‘-‘- an 81-54 win against Brown University on Dec. 3.
Senior co-captains Jesyka Burks-Wiley and Christine Kinneary finished with 21 and 13 points, respectively. Burks-Wiley, the reigning America East Player of the Week, has held that honor for four consecutive weeks. In conference games this season, Burks-Wiley leads the conference in points per game (23.0) and rebounds per game (9.3).
Kinneary set a career high with eight rebounds and also dished out eight assists. She stands just six helpers short of breaking 1981-alumna Debbie Miller’s program record of 477 career assists. Only three players in the history of the program have surpassed 400 assists.
In the postgame press conference, Kinneary talked about how she can still work on her game.
‘I definitely think rebounding is something I need to improve on personally, in each game,’ Kinneary said. ‘The coaches really want me to work on that. It’s something that I’m trying to focus on and get involved more on the boards. If we’re out-rebounding teams, we’re most likely winning the game.’
Fellow senior Amarachi Umez-Eronini chipped in with 17 points, nine boards and two steals thanks to her stellar defensive play.
Coming into the matchup, UMBC (12-8, 4-3) led the conference in points per game (73.9) and was second to BU in team field-goal percentage (.404). The Terriers managed to hold the Retrievers to 17 points below their season average and kept them to 19 percent from the field in the first half.
UMBC junior Carlee Cassidy, who entered the night sixth in the nation with 22.2 points per game, led the Retrievers with a game-high 33 points on 10-of-23 shooting, including 6-of-11 from beyond the arc. Her scoring didn’t bother the Terriers, as they limited her teammates to 24 combined points.
‘Any time another team has a girl score 30, and they lose, we’ll take it,’ BU coach Kelly Greenberg said. ‘We want to shut her down, and we want to limit her number of touches as much as possible, but the bottom line is ‘Did we win?”
Burks-Wiley and Cassidy traded buckets for the first five minutes of the game, with each player scoring 10 points. Cassidy would go on to score the Retrievers’ first 14 points.
‘We’re both big factors on our [respective teams],’ Burks-Wiley said. ‘I think we were just doing what we would normally do in games. It just happened that was the flow of the game.’
Burks-Wiley’s early scoring outburst may have resulted from UMBC’s small starting lineup ‘-‘- no player in its starting five stood above six feet.
‘You got to love when that happens,’ Burks-Wiley said. ‘Games like that, you know, are going to be real scrappy and real physical, but I definitely enjoy the smaller lineups.’
Umez-Eronini broke the 10-10 tie at 15:20, giving the Terriers the lead for the rest of the contest.
Sophomore forward Kerry Cashman, who set a career high in points (11), gave the Terriers an 18-11 lead on a layup off of a Burks-Wiley miss at 12:52.
BU went into the break with a 49-21 lead, shooting 50 percent from the floor and racking up 16 points off turnovers.
Any chances of a UMBC comeback were quickly put to rest by Burks-Wiley, who scored all seven of her second half points in a four minute span, resulting in a 66-45 lead with eight minutes remaining in the game.
‘It started with our defense,’ Greenberg said. ‘Our defensive rebounding, we didn’t give up any offensive boards, and any five we had on the court played with great energy.’
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