Instant takeaways from BU women's basketball's blowout 77-56 win at Yale
In the final game of their non-conference slate, the Terriers delivered their best performance of the year.
Call it a get-right game, a fortunate break in the schedule for Boston University women’s basketball. After losing by 60 last time out against 11-1 Harvard, the Terriers received a golden opportunity to respond in a date with 1-11 Yale on Sunday afternoon.
But after BU’s 77-56 shellacking of the Bulldogs in New Haven, call it this, too: The Terriers’ best performance of the season.
By a mile.
And it arrived at the perfect time — in the non-conference finale, with the Patriot League opener looming on Thursday.
BU (6-5) desperately needed a response after its worst game of the year last Saturday. It didn’t just get it, it left no doubt.
Here are three takeaways from the victory:
BU looked like a completely different team offensively.
The statistical outlook for the Terriers’ offense entering Saturday was about as bleak as it gets: eighth in the PL in field-goal percentage, worst in assists per game, worst in turnovers per game and ultimately, worst in points per game.
With that backdrop, get this: BU, which arrived at 52.8 points a night, dropped 50 in the first half alone (on 71 percent (!!) shooting). The Terriers finished with 77, the first time they’ve scored 70 this season. Their assist/turnover ratio, which has been positive just twice this year, was 14-5 in the first half and 22-19 for the game. Head coach Melissa Graves used a 10-player rotation, and all but one of them scored.
All of that, the game after virtually every offensive metric hit rock bottom in the 86-26 loss to the Crimson on Dec. 21.
Sure, BU certainly took its foot off the gas in the second half. But that’s quite excusable after schooling an opponent in the first 20 minutes.
And while the drop-off in competition — from Harvard (receiving votes in the AP Top 25 Poll) to Yale (328th in the NET rankings) — absolutely contributed, the scale of BU’s response was remarkable.
Bella McLaughlin and Aoibhe Gormley returned from injuries.
And goodness, did BU need its two point guards back on the floor.
The Terriers’ offense couldn’t function without both of them against Harvard, and without only Gormley the game prior against UMass Lowell, they weren’t all that great, either.
McLaughlin (ankle) started on Saturday and immediately looked the best player on the floor — pushing pace, breaking Yale’s full-court press easily and aggressively attacking the basket on the dribble drive. Before their injuries, BU had started Gormley and McLaughlin together, but in the two games BU started only McLaughlin (Lowell and Yale), she handled the point-guard duties almost flawlessly. McLaughlin finished with 8 points and 2 assists.
Gormley returned off the bench around six minutes into the first quarter and was equally impressive, regularly finding pockets to play her transition-focused game, sprinkling in several pretty assists in the process. She tallied 3 points, 5 assists, 4 steals and didn’t commit a turnover.
And when McLaughlin and Gormley were on the floor together, their chemistry looked better than ever — the pair regularly found each other for open shots.
Senior shooting guard Alex Giannaros (team-leading 23 points on Saturday) is still the star of the show, but McLaughlin and Gormley are the ones who run Graves’ offense. If they keep playing like they did against Yale, BU’s offense might be okay, after all.
BU worked the post excellently.
Graves, a former big during her playing days (she went to Notre Dame), has not been shy about her emphasis on playing through the post during her four seasons at BU. But except for the play of freshman forward Allison Schwertner, the Terriers’ haven’t been great down low so far this year as they attempt to fill the enormous void left by Caitlin Weimar (who transferred to powerhouse NC State).
Against the smaller Bulldogs, however, BU dominated inside, finishing with 46 points in the paint. Schwertner, fellow freshman forward Channing Warren (career-high 15 points) and 6-foot-5 junior Anete Adler combined for 30 points and 15 rebounds. The trio sealed off the post with ease, and their teammates didn’t skip a beat in feeding them; for the first time this season, BU was regularly productive when it looked to play through its bigs.
And Adler (9 points), who suffered a torn ACL in non-conference play last year, looked as healthy as she has all season.