A 22-0 run proves costly as the BU women's basketball team falls to Lafayette in the Patriot League opener
Lafayette surged for a 22-0 run to take a 32-16 first-half lead. BU, plagued by turnovers, missed layups and poor transition defense, failed to regain its early lead.
22-0. That made all the difference.
Lafayette scored 22 straight points over six minutes to control the Patriot League opener.
The Boston University women’s basketball team never regained the lead, falling, 66-55, at Case Gym on Thursday.
It marked the first conference opening defeat for fourth-year head coach Melissa Graves and BU’s first home loss to Lafayette (4-8, 1-0 Patriot League) in seven seasons.
“I thought we didn’t have the showing we wanted to, to start our league opener,” said Graves.
“We could have come out of the gates better.”
BU (6-6, 0-1 PL), however, did start strong — at least for the opening eight minutes. Senior guard Alex Giannaros began the contest with three 3s on the opening three possessions. Two possessions later, sophomore Bella McLaughlin knocked down an open shot from deep.
Giannaros made a contested layup in transition minutes later off of an assist from sophomore guard Aoibhe Gormley (team-high nine rebounds and four assists) to give the Terriers a 14-8 lead midway through the quarter.
Lafayette senior guard Halee Smith connected on a midrange jumper with 2:23 remaining in the quarter to snap a five-minute scoreless drought. BU freshman forward Channing Warren made two free throws on the other end. Then the Lafayette barrage began.
22 consecutive points over the next six minutes to take a commanding 32-16 lead. The Leopards scored on five consecutive possessions to end the first quarter, aided by four free throws on two straight trips when McLaughlin and sophomore forward SiSi Bentley committed loose ball fouls in the backcourt while BU was already over the limit.
“I thought we could have defended better,” said Graves. “We had a lot of lapses on defense.”
The Terriers had many chances to end the run but missed a series of point-blank layups. In the final 3:21 of the first quarter, BU missed five.
“We missed a lot of layups today, some easy baskets that I thought would even put us ahead at times, or at least close the lead that they had,” Graves said.
The misses carried into the second quarter. On one key occasion, trailing 22-16, Gormley collected a steal by sophomore forward Audrey Ericksen and raced up the floor, leaving Leopard defenders in the dust. She was rewarded with an open fastbreak layup, but her attempt rolled off the rim. Gormley stood under the rim with her hands on her head; meanwhile, Lafayette senior guard Abby Antognoli snagged the rebound and pushed the pace. Antognoli found junior guard Kay Donahue, who drilled the open transition 3.
On the ensuing possession, Giannaros threw an errant pass stolen by Antognoli. Antognoli pushed the pace again and found junior Sauda Ntaconayigize for a layup in transition, forcing Graves to call a timeout.
The Terriers could not slow down the Leopards in transition, an issue exacerbated by missed layups and 15 turnovers, 10 of which came in the first half.
“We didn’t stop the ball most of the game,” said Graves. “We didn’t have somebody stop the ball until maybe they got to the other end, into the paint, or by the three-point line. So that was an issue.”
“Transition D was a goal of ours coming into the game and, you know, I don’t think we executed as well as we wanted to,” Graves continued.
Lafayette scored 14 first-half fast break points.
The 15 BU turnovers, many of which came from unforced errant passes, prevented the Terriers from building a larger lead early and resulted in wasted possessions when BU looked to end the Lafayette surge.
“We kind of shot ourselves in the foot with a lot of those,” said Graves. “We’re trying to drive baseline, they’re flooding the baseline. We’re trying to make those drift passes, which were not open. We’re trying to do one-handed passes across the court and they’re jumping those passing lanes.”
“I thought if we could have just made the easy pass and even shifted the ball a little bit more before we drove, you know, things like that are just things we need to talk about, we need to watch on film and just fix moving forward,” she added.
Giannaros finally ended the 22-0 run with just over six minutes remaining in the second quarter. She launched a deep 3 with the shot clock winding down that hit the back heel of the rim before falling through the net.
“It’s a five-person effort that we all need to work on, stopping their runs and then playing through that stuff,” said Giannaros, who finished with a game-high 20 points on 7-of-16 shooting.
The Leopards maintained a double-digit advantage until late in the fourth quarter when Giannaros drilled a midrange jumper to cap off an 11-2 run, leaving BU down by eight, 49-41.
Donahue responded on the ensuing possession, freeing herself up for a layup. Sophomore guard Teresa Kiewiet added a 3 at the third-quarter buzzer to pad a 13-point Leopard lead.
The Terriers did not come within nine points in the final frame.
BU limited Antognoli, Lafayette’s leading scorer to five points on 1-of-11 shooting, though she did add seven rebounds and six assists. Donahue, however, scored a season-high 18 points, grabbed six rebounds, and supplied four assists. Ntaconayigize, averaging 7.8 points per game, added 15 and two steals.
“In league play, you know, people step up,” said Graves. “That’s what we need as well. We need people to step up and show up to each game. And I thought Donahue and [Ntaconayigize] did that today for them.”
The Terriers, who have yet to lose consecutive outings this season, will look to respond at Army (9-2, 1-0 PL) for Sunday’s 1 p.m. tip-off.