Saturday afternoon, the Boston University women’s basketball traveled north to Vestal, N.Y., to take on the Binghamton Bearcats for the second time this season.
Just like earlier in the season, the Terriers (20–4, 10–1 America East) came away with a win, but this game had a different story. The Terriers won handedly, 73–51.
In one of the Terriers’ strongest games of the season, their offense was clicking and fluid as five different players scored in double digits. From the opening tip, the Terriers controlled the game with a quick 7-0 start and held the lead until the end of the final buzzer.
Junior forward Whitney Turner led BU with a career-high 14 points on 7-of-10 shooting and added seven rebounds to her stat line.
“Whitney really looked to score [Saturday] because they weren’t doubling her,” said BU coach Kelly Greenberg.
The BU frontcourt, made up of Turner and junior forward Rashidat Agboola, was especially stellar, outscoring Binghamton in the paint, 17-4.
Agboola came up with 13 points on a 4-of-7 shooting day, along with 10 rebounds. The double-double was her seventh of the season.
Senior guard Kristen Sims had 11 points and also tallied five rebounds, while senior guard Chantell Alford chipped in 10 points.
Although she did not score in double digits, senior guard Mo Moran played a major role in the Terriers’ victory, as she was able to account for nine of BU’s 20 assists while also contributing six points and seven boards.
The Terriers’ sixth man, Danielle Callahan, had 11 points off the bench, connecting on three of her seven treys.
“We like to share the ball and we’re always looking for the open person,” Callahan said. “We like to let whoever is open shoot the ball, so it’s really fun playing with these girls.”
Callahan’s performance helped BU gain a 19–18 edge in bench scoring.
In their previous matchup, the Terriers only had three players in double digits, with Chantell Alford leading all scorers with 16. BU shot just 30 percent from the floor, but was able to force Binghamton (4–20, 3–8 America East) into 17 turnovers.
“[In the previous game] they had a couple new players that we weren’t familiar with,” said Greenberg. “But in this game we were ready for them and really jumped on them defensively.”
This time around, the Terriers were defensively stout again and forced the Bearcats into 13 turnovers while holding them to 30 percent shooting. The Terriers put up 17 points off of the turnovers.
“We wanted to be really aggressive on the ball,” Greenberg said. “We knew that they had two 3-point shooters and [sophomore Sherae] Swinson, who had the big game against us.”
Swinson led Binghamton with nine points and pulled down 11 rebounds.
In the teams’ previous matchup, Swinson had 18 points and was 8-of-16 from the floor with five boards. Limiting the Bearcats’ star was key in blowing them out in the teams’ last game as conference opponents.
Binghamton came to within 13 points of BU when freshman guard Kandace Newry hit a 3-pointer with 5:17 remaining in the game to make the score 57–44. But the Terriers went on a 12–4 run over the last 3:42 of the game to seal the 73–51 victory.
BU looks to expand upon its strong performance against Binghamton University when it goes on the road to take on the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vt., Wednesday night.
