Game Notes | Listen Live

After falling to New Hampshire in both regular-season meetings, the Boston University women's basketball team (16-11, 9-7) will hope the third time’s the charm when it faces the sixth-seeded Wildcats (15-12, 7-9) in the quarterfinal round of the America East Championship on Friday, March 10, at Hartford's Chase Arena. Game time will be 30 minutes following the conclusion of the Stony Brook-Vermont quarterfinal, which starts at noon.

UNH posted an 83-71 road victory over BU on Feb. 1 before closing out its home slate with a 76-63 win on Feb. 25. The winner of Friday's quarterfinal will face the winner of the Stony Brook/Vermont contest in Saturday's semifinal round beginning at 1 p.m.

The Terriers tied Binghamton for third in the final conference standings at 9-7, but received the No. 3 seed by virtue of their season sweep over the Bearcats. 
 
BU has won seven of its last nine contests in the America East Championship.
  
THREE IS THE MAGIC NUMBER: BU, which has reached the last three conference title games, will enter the tournament as the No. 3 seed for the third time in four seasons and the sixth time overall. The Terriers were a No. 3 seed in each of their past two conference championship seasons (2003, 1989).

IT’S BEEN A WHILE: Despite both joining the Seaboard Conference prior to the 1984-85 season, UNH and BU have only met twice in the conference tournament and will be facing off in the postseason for the first time since 1989. The Terriers have won both meetings, including a 62-39 victory in the 1985 consolation game. In the 1989 semifinals, third-seeded BU posted a mild 73-65 upset over UNH, the No. 2 seed, before defeating fourth-seeded Northeastern, 60-54, to claim its second consecutive conference title.

SIMILAR SITUATION: The Terriers are 4-8 in the America East tournament when they face a team that swept them during the regular season. When BU defeated UNH in their last tournament meeting in 1989, the Wildcats had won both regular-season meetings. Last season, the Terriers faced two squads that swept them earlier in the year, defeating top-seeded Maine in the quarterfinals before falling to second-seeded Hartford in the championship. 
                                                                          
SERIES HISTORY: The Terriers entered the year having won five of six against New Hampshire, including four straight, but the Wildcats swept BU for the first time since the 2000-01 campaign. UNH now holds a 28-25 edge in the all-time series. The two teams have met on a neutral court only twice before, with BU winning both times. The most recent occurrence was in the 1985 Seaboard consolation game, played at Northeastern’s Cabot Gymnasium.

SCOUTING THE WILDCATS: New Hampshire (15-12, 7-9) won just two of its final six contests in the regular season and its road win over BU on Feb. 1 was its only victory away from home in nine tries since the new year.
   Junior Danielle Clark leads the Wildcats in scoring with 15.2 points per game, an average that ranks third in the conference. She and classmate Ray Williams are each averaging a team-best 6.1 rebounds per game. Williams has enjoyed a breakout season, averaging 11.8 points per game, including 12.8 in conference play, and shooting a league-best 59.9 percent from the floor. Junior Whitney Edwards and senior Lindsay Adams are each contributing over seven points per game, while Edwards ranks third in the conference in steals (2.11 spg).
   Sue Johnson, who is the longest tenured coach in the America East, is in her ninth season at the helm of the UNH program. She has compiled an overall record of 124-129 with the Wildcats, including a 10-8 mark against the Terriers.

UNH-BU REGULAR SEASON NOTES:
   • BU had a seven-game home win streak snapped on Feb. 1 in an 83-71 loss to UNH. The Terriers won their first six home contests this year, the best start since the 1994-95 campaign, when they were victorious in their first nine outings, matching the record originally set by the 1986-87 squad.
   • New Hampshire’s 83 points were the most by a visiting team at The Roof in nearly seven years, as Vermont posted a 90-79 road victory over the Terriers on Feb. 19, 1999.
   • UNH shot 50 percent or better from the floor on only two occasions this year and both came against BU. The Wildcats shot a season-high 51.9 percent in the road win on Feb. 1 before making exactly half of their shots in the home victory on Feb. 25.
   • In the two games, BU was whistled for a combined 47 fouls, compared to just 30 for UNH.
   • Surprisingly, the Terriers committed a season-low seven turnovers in their home loss to the Wildcats and their 18 combined turnovers in the season series was their lowest total against a conference opponent.
 
TAKING CARE OF THE BALL: BU committed a league-low 13.7 turnovers per game during the regular season, good for 14th in the nation. New Hampshire was right behind at 13.8, an average that ranks 17th in the country. 

MEINHARDT LOOKS TO RECAPTURE TOURNEY SUCCESS: After a sub-par conference season in which she averaged 7.3 points per game, junior Katie Meinhardt will look to get back to the form she displayed at last year’s America East tournament. Meinhardt averaged 26.5 points per game, including a program-record 43-point effort against Stony Brook in the first round, to help the eighth-seeded Terriers reach the championship game.
   In seven career games at the conference tournament, Meinhardt has averaged 19.7 points per contest on 50.7-percent shooting, including a remarkable 63.3-percent clip from behind the arc.    

BURKS-WILEY EARNS BACK-TO-BACK ROOKIE OF THE WEEK HONORS: Freshman Jesyka Burks-Wiley closed out her first regular season with her second straight America East Rookie of the Week accolade, it was announced by the league office on Monday. The forward, who has won the weekly honor four times, came off the bench to score a team-high 16 points in the Terriers’ contest at Maine on Wednesday.
   For the week, Burks-Wiley averaged 10.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and 2.0 steals per game.
   Seven minutes into the game at Maine, Burks-Wiley came off the bench and provided an instant spark, scoring BU’s next 14 points, including a pair of 3-pointers. She went on to add nine rebounds and a pair of steals against the Black Bears. On Saturday, Burks-Wiley recorded four points, four rebounds, two assists and two steals in the regular-season finale against Hartford.
   During conference play, Burks-Wiley ranked fourth on the Terriers in both scoring (8.2 ppg) and rebounding (5.3 rpg).
   Burks-Wiley has been the Terriers’ most productive bench player as of late, averaging 10.5 points and 7.2 rebounds over the past six contests.

ON THE MARK: During conference play, BU led all teams in scoring offense (69.8) and free-throw shooting (.755). The Terriers also have excelled from 3-point range, knocking down 161 treys during the regular season, just edging out UMBC (160) for the league lead.
TRIPLE PLAY: Senior co-captain Rachael Vanderwal is the only player in the conference to be ranked among the top 10 in points (12.8 - 8th), rebounds (6.7 - 9th) and assists (3.52 - 4th).

DIRTY DOZEN: Vanderwal has scored 12 or more points in each of BU’s past 13 games, the longest such streak of any player in the conference this season. During the stretch, the senior has averaged 16.3 points, 6.6 rebounds and 3.3 assists per contest and she has set a new career high in points twice during the run.

HIGH FIVE: Vanderwal tallied a league-best 61 assists during America East play and her career total of 340 ranks fifth on BU’s all-time list. 

FROM LONG RANGE: The Terriers have four players who have each connected on at least 29 3-pointers this season, duplicating the program record set last year. Raffo has netted a team-high 35 trifectas, while Kovach is second with 32. Meinhardt ranks third on the squad with 30 and Vanderwal, who is fourth with 29, needs just one more to give the team four with 30 or more for the first time ever. Freshman Kristi Dini has gone 9-of-17 (.529) from 3-point range.