In blowout loss at No. 2 UConn, a few glimmers of light for BU women’s basketball
In an 86-32 loss to Paige Bueckers, Sarah Strong, Geno Auriemma and the Huskies, the Terriers talked about having "small goals." They wound up accomplishing plenty of them.
HARTFORD, Conn. — Back at tiny Case Gym, on the practice plan the day before an opportunity years in the making, the only word in a column labeled ‘Keys’ was COMPETE. A packet containing the scout of the No. 2 team in the nation floated around, too, and below advice on how, exactly, to deal with the nation’s best player, there was a pressing reminder, punctuated with exclamation points, to simply enjoy the opportunity.
After the 2.5-hour session on Wednesday, the face of the program declared that games like this “are not supposed to be stressful.”
But naturally, because this was UConn women’s basketball at the 16,000-seat XL Center, Boston University looked completely overwhelmed by the moment to begin Thursday night. If said face of the program, senior guard Alex Giannaros, was correct when she also claimed the Terriers had nothing to lose, well, BU somehow lost nothing. In the first half, there was little compete, there was even less enjoyment of the opportunity and, as BU head coach Melissa Graves admitted postgame, there was a whole lot of stress.
“The environment,” she said, “gets to you.”
Yet even when trailing, 60-13, in the halftime locker room, the adage still goes. Playing with nothing to lose is playing with everything to gain.
“Do not go out there with your heads hung,” Graves said she told her team at the break. “It is not over.”
And that’s the other nice thing about placing your head on the season-opening chopping block of the most successful program in the history of the sport. It couldn’t have been over at UConn 60, BU 13, because winning was never really the point.
“At halftime, we came in and talked about having small goals,” Graves said.
And in an 86-32 loss to Paige Bueckers, Sarah Strong, Geno Auriemma and No. 2 UConn (1-0), the Terriers (1-1) wound up accomplishing plenty of them.
Atop the second-half To Do list was cutting down turnovers — check — and points off said turnovers — also check. Graves added that she’d aimed to hold the Huskies to less than 20 points in the third quarter, and the Terriers finished the entire half surrendering only 26.
BU, outscored by 47 points in the first half, lost the second by seven.
“Instead of being frantic, we actually thought about it,” Graves said. “And we actually executed.”
Giannaros (13 points, three 3-pointers) and sophomore point guard Aoibhe Gormley (seven points, three assists) led BU, combining for 13 in the second half. Gormley, a non-factor before the break, found pockets to play her thrilling, transition-focused game in the third quarter. BU’s halfcourt defense — which, believe it or not, was quite stout for most of the evening — held UConn scoreless for a stretch of 5:36 in the frame, and Gormley pushed the pace off Husky misses whenever she could.
“I talked to her when we were walking out after halftime. I said, ‘What are your thoughts on what we can run?’ So we talked through some of those things,” Graves said. “So she felt better about it going into the next half. And once she got a few good plays under her, I thought she just felt better, confidence-wise.”
A better, more confident Gormley means a faster, more aggressive BU, which, ultimately, is who the Terriers want to be this season. Twice in a 9-0 third-quarter run, Gormley raced into the lane in transition and kicked out to a wide-open Giannaros. The senior, who took 11 shots in the second half, pulled up for 3 without hesitation and drained both. Those plays went with the second-half theme: BU looked far less tentative on offense once the UConn avalanche was over.
“We were giving up some open shots in [the first half], and I think it was being nervous. You see UConn across the chest, and that becomes overwhelming,” Graves said. “So, when we played to what BU does and our strengths, that was pretty good.”
The moments were still fleeting, of course. BU shot just 25 percent in the second half, made only seven baskets and still committed 14 turnovers. But all three numbers were better than the first, and besides: being able to play its own game, even for only a few moments, against this level of opponent was significant proof of concept for an extremely young and new team.
After all: that was still Bueckers (the presumed No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft), Strong (the nation’s top-ranked incoming freshman) and Auriemma (the second-winningest coach in college basketball history).
“I’m happy we get to move on and play someone else, obviously,” Graves quipped.
But also she seemed legitimately grateful — and even somewhat satisfied — with the whole experience. After practice on Wednesday, she revealed the program had been trying to schedule a game with UConn since Marisa Moseley’s days as head coach. There was a sizable BU contingent scattered throughout the arena, from alums of Moseley’s program who felt they needed to be there, to donors for the program, to parents of a roster scattered all over the country (and the world). Among them was the family of sophomore forward SiSi Bentley, a Hartford native who missed her entire freshman year with an injury. She’s a critical player for BU this season — Graves said with conviction before the season Bentley is the team’s best defender — and the staff worked hard to ensure she played a game back home, something they do for everyone on the roster.
Bentley was excellent, finishing with six points on 3 of 5 shooting, all three makes off dribble drives against elite perimeter defenders.
“She played pretty fearless today, and I’m glad for her, because usually when you come home for a home game, you either played really bad because you’re so nervous, or you play pretty well,” Graves said. “She played well today.”
A confident performance against the No. 2 team in the nation, in front of your family, in only your second career game? Pretty good. And reasons like that were why BU was here.
The Terriers — three-quarters of them freshmen and sophomores — had never seen an environment like it and likely never will again. BU wilted in the initial heat, sure, but emerged with legitimate positives to take back home.
“This is all preparation, I told them that,” Graves said. “It’s not going to matter on our NCAA run, at the end of the day. Is it disappointing? Yeah. Did we want to have a better performance? Of course. But to take the experience of playing the No. 2 team in the country, and Paige Bueckers, who is a role model to some of them, is just a really cool experience.”
