BU women's basketball's season ends in the PL quarterfinal at top-seeded Lehigh
The Terriers' season came to a close in the Patriot League quarterfinal against top-seeded Lehigh, marking their earliest exit under head coach Melissa Graves.
BETHLEHEM, Pa. — The moment the final buzzer sounded, senior captain Alex Giannaros rose from her first seat on the bench and beelined to the Lehigh handshake line.
Boston University women’s basketball’s sixth all-time leading scorer blazed through the handshakes, with a Gatorade towel perched atop her head. She made a right turn and rushed to the locker room, using that same towel to wipe the tears that finally started to fall.
Giannaros had more than five in-game minutes to let it all sink in after committing her fifth and final foul with 5:19 remaining. An illustrious career, which included a nation-leading .515 3-point percentage in her sophomore year, an All-Patriot League first team selection in her junior year and two consecutive trips to the Patriot League title game, ended in the quarterfinal round, well short of where she envisioned.
She went back on the floor around 10 minutes later, tears still welling in her eyes, solely to shake the hand of Addie Micir, Lehigh’s head coach and the Patriot League Coach of the Year.
Sophomore guard Aoibhe Gormley walked across the floor moments later, her eyes red from crying.
Gormley did not hide her ambitions before this season.
“I’d do anything to win the championship,” she said in an interview with Case In Point in October.
Giannaros’ strive to win a Patriot League title was no mystery either.
“She wants to win so badly,” head coach Melissa Graves said before the season.
Instead, the eighth-seeded Terriers never led in the Patriot League quarterfinal, bowing out, 62-44, to top-seeded Lehigh (25-6, 15-3) at Stabler Arena on Monday night.
BU’s quarterfinal exit is its earliest in Graves’ four-year tenure.
“We didn’t earn a seed at home, and it makes it really difficult to play on the road and try to win out,” said Graves.
The Terriers defeated Lehigh, 80-68, at home less than two weeks ago. But struggles on the road have prevailed all season, as BU finished 5-11 away from Case Gym, with all of those wins coming against teams more than 10 games under .500.
“It’s just like a comfortability piece. I think we feel really comfy at home and in front of our fans,” Graves said.
BU was unable to replicate what made it so successful in its win over Lehigh — which first and foremost started from an 80-point outburst on a season-high 55.1 percent shooting clip.
When asked about Lehigh following Saturday’s 75-51 first-round win over Loyola, Graves said, “We put up 75 points. That’s something we’re going to have to probably do to win on the road against them.”
On Monday, the Terriers (12-19, 5-13 PL) scored just 44 points, their lowest in conference play. The Terriers shot 17 for 45 from the floor, 4 for 14 from 3 and committed 20 turnovers to just six assists.
“We just didn’t, obviously, score enough,” said Graves.
BU’s 20 turnovers, paired with Lehigh snagging 11 offensive rebounds, led to the Mountain Hawks attempting 12 more field goals and 12 more free throws than the Terriers.
“We were shooting ourselves in the foot, where we didn’t take care of the ball, we didn’t execute the things we prepped,” Graves said.
The Mountain Hawks are 15-1 at home this season, and it was clear from the first few minutes that BU didn’t have enough to pull off the upset.
The Terriers turned the ball over on back-to-back possessions to open the contest. Junior forward Lily Fandre nailed a transition straightaway 3-pointer, giving Lehigh an 8-2 lead less than four minutes in and forcing Graves to use a timeout. Out of the timeout, BU turned the ball over again.
BU was fortunate to only be trailing 16-10 at the end of the first quarter. It had shot 4 for 11 from the field and coughed the ball up six times. Lehigh only shot 6 for 18 from the floor and 1 for 8 from 3, despite generating some good looks from deep.
Sophomore guards Audrey Ericksen and Ines Monteagudo sank a pair of 3s on consecutive possessions, assisting on each other’s baskets early in the second quarter, cutting Lehigh’s lead to four.
Lehigh answered with a 10-2 run, pushing its lead back to 12. BU’s turnover woes continued and its players were huffing and puffing up and down the floor as the Mountain Hawks ran in transition.
“You saw us in the first half, we were gassed,” Graves said. “We were playing too fast for us. And I told them, like we’re not going to get into a track meet with them. They’re very good in transition.”
The Terriers closed the half with three consecutive giveaways, including one by Monteagudo, where she unsuccessfully attempted to throw the ball between her legs, like an NFL center snapping the ball to his quarterback, to sophomore guard Bella McLaughlin in the right corner.
BU entered the break trailing 35-24, despite shooting a higher percentage from the field — a trend that persisted throughout the entire contest as the Terriers’ 37.8 percent mark edged out Lehigh’s 35.1 percent.
The Mountain Hawks pulled away in the third quarter behind a 9 for 10 effort from the foul line. BU could not stop fouling, sending Lehigh to the stripe on three consecutive possessions. Lehigh made all six of those free throws. All-Patriot League first team graduate guard Maddie Albrecht followed with a 3 and one possession later, the Mountain Hawks were back at the line. Freshman guard Belle Bramer split a pair of free throws, stretching the Lehigh lead to 19 points, courtesy of a 10-0 surge.
“We kind of stopped them for the most part in the halfcourt in the second half. It was just through fouling too much,” said Graves.
BU never cut the deficit to less than 12 over the remaining 15 minutes. The Terriers, whose best quarter of the season was a plus-17 in the first frame against Loyola on Saturday, entered the fourth quarter trailing by 16 on the road against the conference’s top team.
Any idea of a miraculous comeback was dashed when Giannaros fouled out midway through the final frame, putting an end to a disappointing season in which the Terriers never had enough to match the slogans on their warmup shirts: ‘Run It Back.’
“I think we are much better than what we started this season,” said Graves, who coached by far her youngest roster this year.
“Championships are not just a process of within a year; it’s year by year,” Graves added. “We’re building this foundation for this year, and we’re going to be so much better next year for it.”
More reading on BU women’s basketball:
BU women's basketball falls at Lehigh, 62-44, in PL quarterfinal
Boston University women’s basketball routs Loyola Maryland in the PL First Round
How Alex Giannaros grew into BU women's basketball's "everything person"
