Déjà vu: Even with lower stakes, BU women's basketball still can't solve Holy Cross at Hart Center
The Terriers battled against another quality Crusaders' team, but couldn't find a way to win in the fourth quarter.
WORCESTER, Mass. — As head coach Melissa Graves put it postgame, “there’s like bad juju here.”
The Boston University women’s basketball team played at the Hart Center for the first time since last season’s Patriot League Championship — the game that sent Holy Cross to the Big Dance for an eventual matchup with Caitlin Clark and Iowa, leaving Graves and star guard Alex Giannaros with tears smeared in the postgame press conference.
While the stakes were drastically lower on Saturday afternoon, the result was the same: a Holy Cross victory over BU, 60-47.
“This is obviously a really hard place to play. The environment is really tough,” Graves said in her initial postgame statement. “They had a really great fanbase today, which made it a little bit tougher, but I thought we had good moments.”
BU (8-14, 2-9 PL) battled. It stayed within striking distance for a majority of the contest against the Crusaders (15-7, 8-3), one of the PL’s best teams.
But entering the fourth quarter trailing by eight, the Terriers did not score for more than six minutes. That eight-point deficit ballooned to 16.
BU’s offense struggled all game. Nine Terriers scored, but none had more than 10 points. BU shot 38.8 percent from the field and 4 for 12 from 3.
Giannaros, averaging 14.0 points per game this season, was face-guarded and aggressively chased off screens by Holy Cross defenders. She finished with two points on 1-of-7 shooting and never established a rhythm.
“I think when Alex is not scoring, it’s gonna be hard for us to win,” said Graves. “I thought other people stepped up. It was just not in the capacity that we needed.”
Freshman forward Allison Schwertner led the Terriers with team-highs in points (10) and rebounds (8). Sophomore wing Inés Monteagudo added 9 points, all in the first half, on three 3s.
But with Giannaros largely taken out of the offense, the Terriers had no consistent shooting outside of Monteagudo. The Crusaders were happy to sag off against a number of Terrier guards and wings, which clogged space in the middle. It became increasingly difficult for BU to attack the rim.
“They really lock into the game plan where they collapse the paint and they really focus on your personnel,” Graves said. “So if shootings not your forte, they’re gonna sag off of you and help into the post.”
On the other end, the Crusaders were led by the hot shooting of junior forward Meg Cahalan, who netted a career-high 25 points on 9-of-13 shooting and 5 for 9 from 3.
Cahalan was left open from 3 on too many occasions. She also got defenders to bite on her shot fake before stepping in for three midrange jumpers.
Cahalan drilled back-to-back 3s on the first two possessions of the second half and scored Holy Cross’ first 11 points after the break.
“Cahalan killed us,” Graves said. “There were some defensive lapses where I think we could have covered better.”
Holy Cross took an early 14-6 lead, starting 7 for 9 from the field. The Crusaders connected on four midrange jumpers and were freed up for three layups. Graves wanted to set up in a full-court press, but the Terriers were unable to orchestrate it after misses.
When sophomore guard Bella McLaughlin (8 points) sunk a pair of free throws, however, BU went all out on the full-court trap. It didn’t work the first time, as the Terriers left Cahalan wide open underneath the basket.
But after that, BU held the Crusaders to just two points over the next seven minutes. The Terriers went on a 10-2 run over that stretch to take a 21-18 lead.
“We just didn’t get any makes, so we couldn’t get into the press,” said Graves. “That was going to be our MO the whole 40.”
A minute later, Monteagudo hit her third 3 of the game to give BU a 24-20 lead, its largest of the contest.
“I thought Inés had a great game,” Graves said.
But the Crusaders responded with a 12-2 run over the final four minutes of the half to take a 32-26 lead into the break. On the final possession before halftime, senior forward Lindsay Berger drilled a wide-open left elbow jumper just before time expired. Graves looked toward her bench wondering how Berger could be left so open.
The Terriers never led in the second half.
“There’s no other option right now but to continue to play hard and to try to keep getting better, try to get some wins and some momentum going into playoffs,” said Graves. “That’s our option right now.”
“It’s not throw in the towel, and I still believe in this team,” Graves continued. “But we got to try to find a way to get some wins.”