BU women’s basketball started slow again at Army, and in Patriot League play, the Terriers can’t afford it
The Terriers allowed 42 first-half points and trailed by 18 at the break, falling to 0-2 in Patriot League play for the first time in the Melissa Graves era.
When Melissa Graves was asked for her postgame takeaways after the Boston University women’s basketball team’s 69-59 loss at Army Sunday afternoon, the first thing she mentioned was the second half. This much was not a shock. Many times this season, when looking for positives, the final 20 minutes have been the only place to start.
BU is 0-2 in the Patriot League for the first time in Graves’ four seasons at Case Gym, in large part because the Terriers have been miserable in the first half. Lafayette scored 41 first-half points in Boston on Thursday and went into the break leading by 13; Army poured in 42 and led by 18 in West Point three days later. The first half was a problem for BU all non-conference, but the Terriers rescued themselves with ruthless second halves on several occasions.
Well, BU outscored both Lafayette and Army after the break and was pretty damn good in both second halves… and didn’t come close to completing a comeback in either game. As the Terriers are quickly finding out, they simply cannot afford to mess around in Patriot League play.
Graves was asked what she wants her team to consider as it works to solve these slow starts, and her answer wasn’t all that surprising.
“Just understanding how competitive the league is.”
Poor starts weren’t a crisis against other mid-major opponents in the non-conference slate, like winless Le Moyne, two-win UMass Lowell, New Hampshire and Maine (BU came back and won three of those games). But against the Leopards in the conference opener — the first game of the year that truly mattered for either team — and the 10-2 Black Knights on the road? BU wasn’t digging itself a hole — it was digging itself a grave.
The Terriers finished Sunday on a 26-7 run and still only cut the final deficit to 10 points.
“Everyone’s gonna bring their A-game,” Graves said. “Everyone wants to win the conference, it’s very competitive. And especially on the road, those wins are going to be tough, too. I think we have to stop talking about that piece and actually put that thought into action.”
Army’s 42 first-half points were a season-high, and though the Black Knights’ shot-making was lights out, BU didn’t make life hard on its opponent defensively. Army found wide-open looks constantly — the Terriers went under screens, a curious choice given the Black Knights never once hesitated to shoot the 3, but more broadly, BU just didn’t contest shots well enough. The Terriers’ defensive effort in the first half (and for a lot of the third quarter) was as uninspiring as it gets.
Army, for as good as it is, doesn’t light the world on fire on offense. But it did in the first half on Sunday.
“Just the effort,” Graves said when asked what BU was missing.
That was especially frustrating given the Terriers weren’t all that bad at the other end — BU shot 38 percent in the first half, certainly a survivable number, and only committed eight turnovers (and just 13 for the game, meaning BU met its game-by-game quota). But the Terriers killed themselves with the way they defended.
Guarding in transition was as much an issue as it was in the halfcourt, and it was not the first time BU has struggled to defend against teams pushing the pace, even though the Terriers’ biggest strength offensively is pushing pace themselves. Graves was asked what she wants to see her team do differently in that area.
“Talking,” she said. “Communicating to each other.”
“You know — and I told them this in the locker room — we love each other off the floor. Absolutely love each other. We’re constantly talking and hanging out. And that needs to translate more on the floor. I really want to see how we bond translate to the floor more in how we talk to each other, and how we work together as a cohesive unit defensively.”
Ultimately, effort and communication are both controllable “pieces,” as Graves loves to say. BU didn’t lose on Sunday because Army was simply too good, nor did it lose because of a schematic breakdown, at least according to Graves. It lost because, for some reason, it didn’t try hard enough and didn’t communicate well enough, and even more perplexing, because it made those mistakes for 25 game minutes before suddenly deciding not to.
Army’s lead grew to 29 in the third quarter, but after that, BU only surrendered seven points.
“We looked like two different teams,” Graves said.
The Terriers forced 10 second-half Army turnovers, bringing the Black Knights’ total to 13, meaning BU didn’t lose the turnover battle for just the third time this year. Senior guard Alex Giannaros finished with 13 points, sophomore forward SiSi Bentley and sophomore wing Audrey Ericksen both had 8, freshman wing Inez Gallegos had a career-high 7 and 6-foot-3 freshman forward Channing Warren, in the midst of a mini-surge of late after barely playing to start the year, also had 7.
“I thought Channing was phenomenal in the second half,” Graves said. “And it was because she started to post hard and work for her position.”
Freshman forward Allison Schwertner, a two-time conference rookie of the week winner, and 6-foot-5 junior Anete Adler combined for only six points, but Warren showed up.
“I truly believe in our post players, all three of them,” Graves said. “I think they have the ability to dominate in this conference, especially with the size that we bring to the table.”
In many ways, BU’s bigs are a microcosm of the state of the entire program right now — there seems to be a good team in there, but the Terriers just aren’t showing it on the floor.
Especially not in the first half, and in a conference that’s as wide open as it’s been in years, BU is paying for it.
“Everyone’s gonna come ready to play,” Graves said.
The Terriers haven’t, and that’s why they’re 0-2.