In need of a Patriot League win, BU women's basketball rallies to victory at American
Alex Giannaros (21 points), Aoibhe Gormley (8 points, 6 assists, 4 steals) and SiSi Bentley (15 points, 7 rebounds) led the comeback in the nation's capital.
The Boston University women’s basketball team started slow once again on Wednesday, falling behind by as many as 15 points to winless American.
But the Terriers fought back to erase the deficit and earn their first Patriot League victory of the season, 70-67, over the Eagles (0-14, 0-3 PL) at Bender Arena behind big-time performances from senior Alex Giannaros and sophomores SiSi Bentley and Aoibhe Gormley.
Giannaros finished with a team-high 21 points on 7-of-17 shooting and added three assists. Bentley notched a career-high 15 points and corralled seven rebounds. Gormley scored eight points, dished out a team-high six assists and had a game-high four steals.
BU fell flat in its opening two Patriot League contests, falling to 0-2 in conference for the first time under head coach Melissa Graves, but scraped and clawed for a win on Wednesday.
“This is definitely huge for the confidence piece. We needed this so bad,” said Bentley. “We’re just gonna be going up from here, so we’re super excited.”
It was not pretty. But BU (7-7, 1-2 PL) found a way on a day when, early on, it looked like that would not be the case.
The Terriers fell behind 16-3 in the first quarter and looked sluggish. They operated in a man-to-man defense and could not seem to properly communicate through all of American’s actions. On one instance midway through the opening quarter, AU’s Anna Rescifina was rewarded with a wide-open layup after freshman forwards Inez Gallegos and Channing Warren were unable to defend a back screen at the elbow.
Even when the Eagles were not left all alone, they earned catches close to the basket after being freed up by off-ball screens. BU looked ill-equipped to defend the actions or the paint.
Seven of American’s eight first-quarter field goals came from layups.
“We were getting hit on every back screen and slice screen,” said Graves. “We just weren’t jumping to the ball, communicating.”
On the offensive end, the Terriers missed seven layups. The majority were relatively open and uncontested.
“We were getting open looks and just missing. So I think it’s a focus piece,” Graves said. “We’ve been doing a lot of finishing school in practice, and we’ll continue to rep that stuff.”
The compiled mistakes on both ends resulted in a 19-7 American lead at the end of the frame. It marked the 14th time BU has failed to score 10 points in a quarter this season.
“I wasn’t happy with how we started. I thought we could’ve had a better effort and lock in when we started that first quarter,” said Graves.
Slow starts have become a pattern for BU. They showed up in the non-conference slate and have now appeared in the first three Patriot League contests. Facing Lafayette in the conference opener, BU allowed a 22-0 run in the first and second quarters that it could not respond from. At Army on Sunday, the Terriers allowed 42 first-half points and trailed by 18 at the break.
In all three outings, BU’s opponent scored the most first-half points it has all season. Against AU, that number was 36.
“We’re trying to figure that piece out,” Graves said. “We’re trying different things to try to see, you know, what is the issue? Why do we have the slow starts?”
“We’re mixing things up in practice. How we start practices. We’ve been really mindful of our warmups and our energy in warmups,” said Graves.
So far, none of BU’s efforts have made a tangible difference on the floor early in games.
But in the second quarter BU switched to a zone defense, to avoid dealing with American’s screen-heavy actions, and began to chip away at the early deficit.
“I feel like switching over to zone was really good for us,” said Bentley. “We had to make the other team adjust.”
Gormley and Bentley synced up for two transition layups to begin the quarter, with Gormley pushing the pace and finding Bentley in the paint.
“That was definitely one of our key things, to get out in transition,” said Bentley. “We knew that the other team was poor in transition, so with our point guard pushing it and then us running out, it just gave us a huge advantage.”
Freshman forward Allison Schwertner ran the floor for a transition layup three trips later to cap off an 8-2 start to the frame. American head coach Trinity Coll called timeout.
But after the break, the Eagles went on an 8-0 run, scoring on three consecutive trips to take a 29-15 lead. That advantage was stretched to 33-18 with three minutes left in the half.
BU closed on a 10-3 run and trailed 36-28 at the break.
Giannaros scored BU’s first 10 second-half points to keep the deficit at eight midway through the third quarter.
Gormley followed by getting out in transition and dishing consecutive assists to Warren and sophomore guard Ines Monteagudo, leaving BU down by just three, 46-43.
“The spark that she brought off the bench was huge for us,” Graves said of Gormley. “She’s a huge reason that we won this game.”
In the final two offensive trips of the quarter, Bentley scored putback layups, including an and-one. She finished with five offensive rebounds.
“She’s very athletic, she can get downhill, she crashes the glass like crazy,” Graves said of Bentley.
Bentley continued to shine to start the fourth quarter, with driving layups on the first two possessions that cut the deficit to one, 55-54.
On the second trip, Gormley went the length of the floor before finding Bentley open inside.
“It’s just amazing with Aoibhe. I know if I work hard, I know that she’s going to find me,” said Bentley. “It’s just wonderful to play with her.”
BU took its first lead two trips later and then built up a five-point lead with three minutes to go.
The Eagles tied it up with a pair of free throws by freshman Cecilia Kay (22 points, nine rebounds) and a 3 from junior Laura Nogues (14 points) in a matter of seconds after Bentley turned it over on the baseline inbounds pass.
Giannaros answered with a floater and the Terriers earned two defensive stops, including Gormley’s fourth steal.
Giannaros tacked on two free throws to make it a four-point contest with 14.9 seconds to play. Nogues hit a 3 over Giannaros with eight seconds remaining to make it a one-point game.
Gormley drilled two big free throws on the other end and Nogues’ final heave from near midcourt was well off.
“I think we gave up that one three. But otherwise, I thought we executed and made our free throws down the stretch,” Graves said.
With the victory, BU moves to 1-2 in Patriot League play and will host Colgate (10-5, 0-2 PL, pending a matchup with Lehigh later on Wednesday) on Saturday.
“We found a way to get it done. And I think any wins on the road are going to be really tough,” said Graves. “So just proud of being able to get it done on the road.”