Turnovers killed BU women's basketball in a loss at Colgate
The Terriers committed 21 turnovers, tied for their highest mark in Patriot League play and third-most of the season, in a blowout loss.
When the Boston University women’s basketball team arrived in Hamilton, N.Y., on Saturday afternoon for a matchup with Colgate, it was over three weeks since turnovers had been a glaring issue during a game.
Yes, BU entered Cotterell Court on a three-game skid and had lost four of five. Plenty of different things had cost BU dearly during that stretch — from poor defense to a lack of effort to silly late-game execution — but at the very least, BU was starting to take care of the basketball. The Terriers, who at multiple points earlier in the season were averaging around 20 turnovers per game, were averaging only 12.8 over the five games since a tight home loss to Navy on Jan. 22.
Graves said during non-conference play BU enters every game with a goal of committing fewer than 13 turnovers, and for one of the only times this season, her team was under that mark over a several-game stretch.
Then Saturday — Colgate 71, BU 51 — happened.
The Terriers coughed up the ball 21 times, tied for their highest number of Patriot League play and third-highest of the year.
“At the end of the day,” Graves said postgame, “it came down to our turnovers.”
Right as it finally looked like one of the plethora of problems BU’s suffered from was starting to solve itself. The Terriers (8-15, 2-11 PL), who have lost games for basically every reason you could think of during conference play, need something — anything — to hang onto. It looked like Graves and her staff might, at last, be able to check an issue off their mammoth to-do list, then, bam — 31 Colgate points off BU giveaways.
“It’s definitely harder, because usually with a team, you have one — maybe two — things you have to focus on, and you get better in that area,” Graves said. “But it is something different each time.”
The 21 turnovers allowed Colgate to attempt 17 more field goals than BU. That kind of discrepancy had been a problem all year — the Terriers have taken 181 fewer shots than their opponents this season — and it culminated in the loss to Navy, when BU had 16 fewer field-goal attempts. But in the five games after the defeat against the Mids, the Terriers were never outshot by more than six, and in two of those games, they even took more field goals than their opponent.
Graves said it was “almost impossible” to win a game with that kind of field-goal margin after the loss to Navy, and it wasn’t any easier three weeks later against the Raiders (19-7, 9-4 PL).
BU shot 60 percent in the first quarter but still ended it trailing by five. The Terriers committed five turnovers in the frame and four of them were in the backcourt, as Graves’ team succumbed to Colgate’s full-court press over and over again. On several occasions, BU couldn’t even complete the inbounds pass from under the basket.
“Not anything we didn’t prep against,” Graves said. “We knew they were going to be that way.”
She was asked why turnovers were suddenly such a struggle again — three days after BU had committed just 11 turnovers, its second-lowest mark of the year, in a tight loss to Bucknell — and Graves cited the landscape of the Patriot League.
“Every one style of play is different,” Graves said. “So you come off a game with Bucknell, who does not pressure at all, not even in the half-court. They let you run your stuff… they’re not in your face. Colgate is a little bit different, but again, nothing we didn’t prep against, nothing we hadn’t seen before.”
“I don’t know what it was today, we were just not focused on taking care of the ball,” she added.
The PL is undeniably tough, and at 2-11 against conference opponents, the reality is that BU hasn’t shown it’s good enough to handle it. Against Bucknell on Wednesday, it didn’t execute well enough down the stretch. Against Bucknell the first time, on Jan. 25, and against Loyola Maryland on Feb. 1, BU didn’t defend. At Holy Cross last Saturday, it couldn’t score enough points to keep up.
The Terriers have too many areas of weakness — and not enough areas of strength — to reliably win games in a crowded conference. That’s why their record is what it is, even though BU’s taken plenty of games down to the wire.
“I’m trying to figure out where it stems from,” Graves said.
Whatever she eventually comes up with — Graves cited the team’s youth as a “conclusion” she’s come to — it won’t be an overnight fix.