Women’s Basketball: BU Fall Again, This Time to Maine
By Celine Cheung
Featured Image by Troy Bolduc
Boston University Women’s Basketball (3-5) fought hard but lost against the University of Maine (3-5), 45-54, in Orono, Maine.
“Our game plan was to try to dig down and get the ball out of [Adrianna Smith’s] hands, and I thought we did that for parts of the game, but we didn’t focus in on it for 40 minutes,” BU Head Coach Melissa Graves said.
A tip-off won by the Terriers opened up a tight first quarter between the University of Maine and Boston University. The Black Bears found success by utilizing their patience and swinging the ball around to break through the Terriers’ press. BU senior forwards Anete Adler and Anastasiia Semenova took advantage of their height to log their first points off of offensive rebounds.
Blackbear forward Adrianna Smith started the game with a 3-pointer, assisted by teammate Asta Blauenfeldt. Smith was named America East Player of the Week on Monday, after she averaged 15.5 points, 10.5 rebounds, and 7.5 assists and achieved the first triple-double in Maine’s history since 2015.
Terrier guard Hildur Gunnsteinsdóttir drove in for a layup, giving BU a 9-8 lead, which was their first of the game. Gunnsteinsdóttir has started six games after her first start against Northeastern University on November 11.
Going into the game, Maine’s main goals were to prevent dribble drives, keep confidence up, utilize contributions from key role players, and focus on team defense.
With a 40% field goal percentage, Maine led 14-9 after the first quarter. They scored 7 points off of turnovers, as compared to BU’s 0. The Black Bears certainly emphasized ball movement in the first quarter with five assists on six field goals.
After two made free throws by Gunnsteinsdóttir off of a shooting foul, she had seven of BU’s 11 points. Her pace and decisiveness have led to her success down low. A defensive rebound and a quick pump fake into a layup gave Gunnsteinsdóttir her ninth point of the game and cut Maine’s lead down to 16-13.
With a rebound out of the scatter by Smith and a pass to Maddie Fitzpatrick that led to a swished 3-pointer, Maine led 21-13, their biggest lead of the game, a little more than halfway through the second quarter. BU junior Audrey Ericksen then countered with a corner three and assisted Allison Schwertner’s layup down low to bring the lead back to three.
Another assist by Ericksen that led to a Schwertner layup brought the BU run to 7-0, forcing a Maine timeout.
Out of the timeout, Maine ball movement around the perimeter, a cut down low, and a relocation to the corner caused senior guard Sarah Talon to be left wide open in the corner, where she drained the three and brought their lead back up, 24-20. It stayed there till the end of the half.
With the Black Bears leading by four points at halftime, they found plenty of success by keeping control of the ball, limiting their turnovers, and boxing out well despite the height difference. However, they only scored 10 points in the second quarter, with two field goals and a 14.3% field goal percentage.
In the first half, the Terrier post players utilized their height to outrebound Maine with seven more rebounds and scored eight more points in the paint. Going into the second half, they looked to clean up their gameplay, as they had 11 turnovers, which led to Maine scoring 12 points.
After a made free throw by McLaughlin and then a Maine baseline drive and a pass to the corner led to another swished three by Blauenfeldt, the Black Bear lead grew to six one minute into the third quarter.
With two defenders nearby, Smith cut to an open space in the zone to take advantage of the miscommunication and made a jumper over BU. A steal by Talon off of a bad BU pass led to a fast break layup and a 10-point Black Bear lead.
Semenova responded out of the timeout with a post-up and a fadeaway shot. She brought the score to 33-25. Inés Monteagudo Pardo then hit a high-arcing three-pointer with a hand in her face to bring the momentum back into BU’s favor late in the third quarter. Solid Terrier defense in two back-to-back possessions led to two missed threes and a Black Bear timeout.
The timeout proved to be useful as Blauenfeldt hit a three, Smith made two free throws, and Talon laid it up and in at the end of the third quarter to give Maine the 42-28 lead.
Kicking off the fourth quarter, Terrier Rose Azmoudeh hit two threes in back-to-back BU possessions to break the 9-0 Maine run. Back-and-forth layups then kept the Black Bears firmly ahead until Schwertner made two free throws to bring the lead to six. Maine, however, was able to pull away once again through breaking and scoring against the zone defense, forcing turnovers, and securing free throws.
Maine won their second straight game, 54-45, against BU, led by Smith, who had 24 points and 10 rebounds and her fifth season double-double. Gunnsteinsdóttir led the Terriers with 11 points. While the Terriers shot 40.5% from the field to the Black Bears’ 33.3%, they also had 21 turnovers, which Maine converted into 20 points.
BU will face the 11th-ranked University of North Carolina on the road this Sunday at 12 p.m. Streaming will be available on ACCN.
“We adjusted some things that we do programmatically, and I think they’ll be working once we have all the pieces together. I’m excited about what that’ll look like when we have everybody back but for now, we gotta try to be able to execute,” BU Head Coach Melissa Graves said.