Women’s Basketball: Caitlin Weimar shines as BU Takes Down Lafayette

Featured image by Claire Guest

By Luke Scotchie

Caitlin Weimar had herself the game of her life.

It feels as though such a phrase is uttered after every screech of Case Gymnasium’s final buzzer. But this was not just another Caitlin Weimar game. It truly might have just been the game of her life.

The Boston University (13-6, 5-3 PL) senior forward finished Saturday’s 51-39 victory over Lafayette (6-13, 1-7 PL) with 26 points off of 10-for-16 shooting from the field, 12 rebounds, a career-high 7 blocks and 4 steals. She scored more points than all of her teammates combined (25 total points), and did so without attempting a single shot from behind the 3-point line.

“She impacts the game in so many different ways in such a huge capacity,” BU head coach Melissa Graves said after the game.

That’s not an exaggeration, as Weimar’s defense might have been the most important part of BU’s victory on Saturday. Her nine defensive boards made up nearly a third of BU’s total (28 defensive rebounds), and she recorded more steals and blocks than Lafayette managed to muster as a team.

“Cait brings so much more than just the scoring piece, which is a big statistic that a lot of people see,” Graves said. “Even today, she almost had a triple double with her blocks.”

Weimar’s defenders quickly realized how dominant she was on the court. By the end of the second quarter, Lafayette would send three of their players to triple-team her whenever she caught the ball near the basket.

“This has been kind of how the league has tried to guard her the last couple of years,” Graves said.

But that wasn’t enough to stop Weimar, as those triple-teams opened up several good looks for her teammates, including a wide-open 3-pointer from junior guard Alex Giannaros that Weimar assisted.

To Graves, plays like those signal Weimar’s improvement as a playmaker. Her ability to see Giannaros in between the arms of Lafayette’s many defenders was not something that she could have done in previous years, and the quick pass to the sophomore guard is symbolic of how far she’s since come.

“With the triple-teams in the past, she may not have been able to find (a way) out as easily, where she’s become a really good passer this year,” Graves said. “And that’s been a focus of hers, how she can share the ball better and find what’s open.”

For as dominant as Weimar and the Terriers looked on Saturday, it didn’t start off that way. BU struggled to open the game as they allowed two easy shots from Lafayette and quickly fell behind 5-0. The Terriers scored their first points of the game off of free throws from Giannaros, nearly four minutes after the opening tipoff.

The first period ended in a stalemate, 10-10. The Terriers picked themselves up midway through the quarter, but they still couldn’t buy a bucket, going just 4-for-13 from the field after the first buzzer sounded. They were lucky that Lafayette’s shots weren’t hitting the net, either (4-for-16). 

But once the second period began, BU began to capitalize off of Lafayette’s mistakes. They scored 8 points off of Lafayette turnovers in just six minutes, most of which contributed to a 10-0 run that spanned nearly three whole minutes.

“I thought we did a really good job on the defensive end to get the stops that we needed to get,” Graves. “We usually track forced stops. We had nine today, which was probably a season high.”

At the half, the Terriers found themselves ahead, 24-17. They discussed their ambivalent performance and possible adjustments in the locker room and returned to the court ready to close the game out. 

Once they returned to the floor, they refused to look back, keeping their lead until the game concluded.

“We got much higher-percentage looks in the second half and I thought we continued our defensive pressure intensity,” Graves said.

This victory secures the Terriers’ third-ranked spot in the Patriot League, and it ties their overall record with that of Holy Cross (13-6, 7-1 PL), the conference leaders. The Crusaders dropped their first Patriot League game against Lehigh (12-7, 4-4 PL) on Saturday, a result that Graves celebrated after finding out during the postgame press conference.

The Terriers will travel to Worcester to play Holy Cross on Monday at 4:00 p.m. in a 2023 Patriot League title game rematch, hoping to take the Crusaders’ title as the team with the best overall record in the conference. 

It’s a very important game, one that Graves hopes will be the first step toward this team’s full potential before the postseason begins.

“Hopefully we can continue to improve throughout the rest of this conference play as we head into playoffs.”