Women’s Basketball: Terriers Continue to Struggle in League Play vs. Loyola

Featured image by Elyse Paugh 

By Kaan Oguz

Boston University Women’s Basketball (8-13, 2-8 PL) got their eight loss in their last tenth game against Loyola Maryland Greyhounds (8-13, 2-8 PL) at home. With this win Greyhounds equalized their record with Terriers in Patriot League. 

“It was the defensive side we really struggled with.” said coach Melissa Graves in her opening statement in the post-game interview. Coach Graves stated the lack of consistency on the defensive end of the game was the most critical point about their loss several times.

Boston University was the team who started slightly better in the game. They managed to do what they wanted in offense in the first quarter. 7 assists and 1 turnover from the team in the first quarter is the greatest indicator that shows that the flow of offense was good at the start. 

With 6 points each from Allison Schwertner and Alex Giannaros at the start, Boston University found their scorers and found a 9 points lead at the very beginning of the game. This was the largest lead for the Terriers throughout the game. 

Through the end of the first quarter Loyola Maryland reduced the Terriers’ lead with the easy layups they found and the first quarter ended with one ball difference. Second quarter was similar to the opposite of the first quarter. 

The Greyhounds took control of the game and scored consecutive baskets in the first 5 minutes and came up with a 9-0 series. Then the Terriers balanced the game and the teams went to the locker room tied at 33.

Third quarter was the quarter where the Greyhounds took the game away. At 6:12 left in the third quarter, Laura Salmeron made a three point jumper that made coach Greaves call for a timeout. That basket was the start of a 15-2 series from Loyola Maryland which lasted for more than 5 minutes. 

Throughout the whole game and especially in that sequence, Terriers struggled with the defense of Laura Salmeron. In the post-game interview coach Graves praised opponent guard Salmeron. 

“We couldn’t guard her,” Graves said. “She was phenomenal today; very difficult to guard.” 

Laura made 2 3-point jumpers and an and-one  (9 points)  in that 15-2 series of Greyhounds. Loyola Maryland, who widened the margin up to 13 at some point of the third quarter won that quarter with the score 21-13, and thus ended the quarter with the score 54-46.

The first eight and a half minutes of the last quarter, the Greyhounds seemed to win the game without any major trouble. They were leading the game with a margin that was changing between nine and 12. Approaching the end of the game, Greyhounds did not score a single point between 2:53 and 0:17. 

The Terriers were down by nine when that scoring drought started. With the three-point jumper of Alex Giannaros, who scored the last 10 points for the Terriers, Boston University managed to reduce the margin to a one-ball difference when 1:17 was left in the game. The score was 66-63 entering the last minute and BU had possession. 

Alex Giannaros missed the mid-range jumper in the last minute, and then Laura Salmeron scored the game-winning layup for Loyola Maryland Greyhounds. At the last seconds, mutual free throws did not change the leading team and Loyola Maryland won the game by a score of 72-68.

Laura Salmeron was the star of the game with 28 points with 10-14 field goals and 4-5 behind the arc. Amandine Amorich was the other double digit scorer for Greyhounds who scored 14 points in the game. 

For the Terriers, Allison Schwertner scored 22 points with 8-10 from the field. Alex Giannaros was the other player who carried the scoring burden with 20 points, 10 of those points being the last 10 points of Boston University.

Next, the Terriers will go on the road to face Holy Cross on 8th Feb. at 6 p.m. with streaming available on ESPN+.