UMBC Women's Basketball Steals First Place From Boston University

UMBC women’s basketball nabbed first place in the America East Conference by dominating inside and playing tough defense in the first half, then sinking free throws late to unseat Boston University, 62-52 at RAC Arena.

The win matched a school Division I record for victories in a season, but more importantly gave the Retrievers (17-10, 11-3 America East) soul possession of first place in the conference for the first time this season. The Terriers (13-11, 10-3) trail UMBC by a half game.

The Retrievers won on a night when Binghamton, the third place team in the conference before this evening, was blown out by fourth place Hartford, 55-37. Both the Bearcats (16-10, 9-4) and the Hawks (12-14, 9-4) are now tied for third and sit 1.5 games back of UMBC with two games to play.

The Retrievers play Hartford Sunday at 1 p.m.

Junior Erin Brown scored 18 total points and sunk 4 of 4 free throws with under a minute to play to prevent a Boston U. comeback. Afterward, she calmly said UMBC could enjoy the record and first place, but needed to be cautious.

“It feels really good,” Brown said. “We’re going to have a target on our backs when we go up to Hartford, so we just gotta keep playing the same basketball that we’ve been playing and try to keep our first place spot.”

Though the Retrievers once led by 21 in the second half, the game wasn’t without its excitement.

After a big first half, junior center Tope’ Obajolu went ice cold in the second half. She finished with 17 points, but went just 1 of 7 from the field in the final 20 minutes.

Obajolu, unsatisfied with her defensive effort in the second half as the Terriers outscored UMBC 8-0 in the paint, said she may have let those shortcomings affect her offense, too.

“I defeated myself,” Obajolu said. “On the defensive end, I was kind of struggling so I brought myself down. But I tried to do everything I could to bring the team back up.”

Boston U. closed the gap to 10 points with under seven minutes to play after Alex Young sunk a jumper at the top of the key following a Kristin Coles miss on the opposite end.

Coles was fouled on the ensuing possession and sunk 1 of 2 shots from the line to up UMBC’s lead to 11 with under six minutes remaining in the game. After a Terrier miss at the free throw line, Coles scored again, this time on a turnaround jumper, to give the Retrievers a 55-42 lead.

UMBC’s solid free throw shooting, 78.3 percent for the game, did the rest.

After scoring just 39 points in a Jan. 17 loss to Boston U., the Retrievers came out firing in the first half, scoring 36 points before intermission and taking a 17 point lead into the locker room.

Obajolu led the Retrievers in the first half with 12 points on 5 of 9 shooting.

“At first they were … not playing as hard, so I took advantage in the paint to get easy open looks inside before we went out,” Obajolu said. “We didn’t really score from the 3-point line, so I felt that was my opportunity to bring points to the board.”

The Terriers, meanwhile, were stifled – shooting only 29.6 percent – and frustrated by a tenacious UMBC defense that forced 12 turnovers in the game’s first 20 minutes, five coming on steals from Michelle Kurowski and Michele Brokans.

The Retrievers charged out to a 10-5 lead after forcing four of those turnovers in just over five minutes to start the game.

Brokans had two steals in that span, and scored the Retrievers’ first bucket of the game on a fast-break layup following her theft, setting the tone for the Retrievers’ ball-hawking.

UMBC coach Phil Stern said it was “one of the best first halves I’ve seen out of us defensively.”

“We played incredible defense tonight against a great offensive team,” he said.

When UMBC received an extra possession, it made the most of its opportunities, scoring 18 points off turnovers in the first half and outscoring the Terriers 20-4 in the paint.

The Retrievers shot 45.5 percent in the first half.

“We just talked about opportunity all week,” Stern said. “There’s no pressure on us. We were picked for fifth in this league. We wanted to understand that over the next three weeks, we’ll have several opportunities to do great things, and this is the first one.”

UMBC lost its previous matchup with Boston University, 65-39, as the offense was unable to mount a consistent attack against the Terriers on their home court. Kerry Cashman did the most damage for Boston U., scoring 14 points and snatching nine rebounds in the win.

But Cashman was quiet Thursday night, scoring only four points, though she did corral 12 rebounds

The Retrievers shot 37.5 percent for the game, while the Terriers shot 32.2 percent. UMBC held a 45-33 edge in rebounding.