After falling to Brown on Sunday, the Binghamton women’s basketball team will look to get back in the win column this weekend when it takes on Fairleigh Dickinson. Although the Bearcats (1-5) have lost three straight, their recent lack of success has not fazed them.
“We haven’t even talked about our record; our record is not important,” BU head coach Linda Cimino said. “We know how good we can be, and we know that we’ve been in every game that we’ve played and we’ve challenged ourselves.”
In Sunday’s game against the Bears, the Bearcats committed 20 turnovers — an uncharacteristic number for them this season.
“All year we’ve been in the top 10 teams in the country in fewest turnovers committed per game,” Cimino said.
According to Cimino, limiting turnovers against a team like FDU — which relies heavily on the press — will require making an extra pass if necessary and focusing on maintaining possession.
Another key for BU is finding chemistry within its lineup. While the Bearcats are still facing nonconference opponents, Cimino has consistently switched up the lineup in the hope of finding a winning combination.
“I think we need to just work on a couple more things and get over the hump a little bit,” Cimino said. “I think that we’ll put all the pieces together and hopefully by conference play, we’ll have figured it out.”
Although they haven’t come out on top most of the time, Cimino is encouraged by her team’s ability to keep games close at the half.
In BU’s only win over the year — against Penn — the Bearcats put together their most complete performance. BU gained the lead less than halfway through the first quarter and did not give it up, cruising to a 61-48 win.
“[That win] is something that we can fall back on the rest of the season, knowing that we beat a very good team like Penn and our defense was very good that day,” Cimino said.
FDU (2-4) is coming off a loss to Army on Monday night. The Knights’ top-scoring threat against the Bearcats is redshirt senior forward Brianna Thomas, who has averaged 16 points per contest this season. In their most recent matchup in 2012, FDU took down BU by a score of 54-41.
BU is set to play Fairleigh Dickinson on Friday. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. from Stratis Arena in Hackensack, New Jersey.