How the number ‘5’ helped BU women’s basketball to a comeback victory over Le Moyne
The Terriers adjusted one of their statistical goals at halftime. But in the 60-55 victory over the Dolphins, they ended up reaching the original one, anyway.
As she debriefed another slow start in the halftime locker room at Ted Grant Court on Thursday evening, Melissa Graves asked her team for a number. Boston University women’s basketball had arrived in Syracuse to face winless Le Moyne with its normal goal of committing less than 13 turnovers. But after a tough first half — which they left trailing, 28-23 — the Terriers had already committed 10.
“So I said to them, ‘What do you want it to be now?” BU’s head coach explained postgame. “‘We have to adjust our goal, but what do you want this second half to look like?’”
Her players settled on five, for the amount of second-half turnovers they’d allow themselves. A concession of the original goal, sure, but a new one for a young team to build towards.
“I wanted them,” Graves said, “to own it.”
BU proceeded to only commit two. Meaning, for the record, that not only did the Terriers accomplish their adjusted goal, but their original one, too.
It marked the first time this season BU has finished with less than 13 turnovers.
“They were like, ecstatic about that after the game,” Graves said.
BU didn’t play well in its comeback, 60-55 victory over the Dolphins (0-8), something Graves immediately admitted on her phone call with reporters. The Terriers (4-3) needed a 24-point explosion in the fourth quarter, powered by senior captain Alex Giannaros (13 points) and freshman forward Allison Schwertner (18 points), to erase what was once a 13-point Le Moyne lead. Giannaros canned a long 2 out of a timeout with under a minute left to give BU a lead it carried across the finish line.
“I didn’t think we came ready to play,” Graves said. “Any road win is a great win, but obviously, a lot of things to learn from this one.”
Once again, though, the Terriers found a way to turn it on after a poor start. That’s been the story of this non-conference slate, and you do wonder — given that BU is 75 percent freshmen and sophomores — how a team this young is already this resilient.
The team’s goal system seems like a pretty good place to start.
The Terriers begin every game with a set of statistical thresholds — “how many points, what [percentage] we want to shoot, rebounds, everything,” Graves said. But those goals are always flexible; they can be adjusted within games and, if BU sees fit, it will set goals to reach just by the end of the next quarter, or even by the next media timeout.
“If the game is really getting too big for us and little out of control on certain things,” Graves said, “it’s a lot easier for them to focus on smaller goals than a whole big picture.”
This is what BU did nearly a month ago in front of 13,000 people at Hartford’s XL Center — when it trailed by 47 at halftime against No. 2 UConn. The Terriers talked about “small goals” in that locker room, too, and wound up leaving with plenty of moral victories — against what might be the best team in the country. Same process on Thursday, and this time, BU took the entire victory.
It’s hard to do anything offensively while committing 10 first-half turnovers, but when the Terriers finally stopped giving away possessions, a competent offense came to be. BU’s poor third-quarter shooting (31 percent from the field and 1 of 8 from 3) undid that progress to start the second half. But the looks were good; a team that had shot 45 percent in its previous three games just didn’t make them.
Meanwhile, the Dolphins, who were shooting 31 percent on the season coming in, made jumper after jumper at the other end.
“We talked about trusting the percentages,” Graves said. “We were getting open shots. Continue to do those things.”
Go figure — BU shot 56 percent in the fourth quarter.
Similar resilience was required on an individual level, specifically for Schwertner. She was excellent in the second half, relentlessly running the floor and competing on the glass, only for a series of agonizing missed layups to undo her hard work. Nevertheless, the freshman kept shooting, and BU couldn’t have won without her eight fourth-quarter points. She’s now reached double figures in three of the last five games and is second on the team in scoring so far this year (10.3 points per game).
“She’s got a great motor, so even when she makes a mistake, she doesn’t let it affect her throughout a game,” Graves said. “And I told her, ‘You can make mistakes, it’s going to happen,’ because she’s very hard on herself. But you don’t see the body language scenes, you don’t see her shy away from things. She continues to attack, and for a freshman, that’s so rare to see.”
Graves speaks consistently, both to her team and to the media, about the non-conference slate being about growth, above all else. The point of these games is not necessarily to win them, especially for a team so green. It’s why the Terriers’ small, statistical goals are so prevalent this time of year (though Graves said BU does follow the same protocol during Patriot League play).
BU’s started slow — painfully slow, in some cases — in five of its eight contests so far this year (including an exhibition against Division III Emmanuel). But it has yet to wilt in the face of that adversity.
In part, it seems, that’s because the Terriers always have the small goals to fall back on.
And as they found out on Thursday: accomplish enough of the small goals, and you can reach the big ones, too.