The Binghamton University women’s basketball team (10-12, 5-2 America East), picked to finish last in the America East’s preseason poll, pulled off its biggest upset of the season on Wednesday night when it defeated third-place Stony Brook for the first time since 2012, 54-47.
The contest served as a rematch of BU’s first AE game of the season against the Seawolves (14-8, 6-3 AE), in which the Bearcats let a 16-point third-quarter lead slip before falling, 64-58.
“This is definitely an important win for us,” BU head coach Linda Cimino said. “It sparked a lot of confidence in the girls, and it showed them that we can win, we can compete with a better team on paper, and we can beat a team that’s ranked higher than us.”
Cimino’s feelings were echoed by senior guard Kim Albrecht, who cited January’s disappointing loss as a major factor in propelling the Bearcats to victory against a team that had suffered just two conference losses prior to Wednesday night’s rematch.
“It’s a great confidence boost, especially after last time, giving up that big lead,” she said. “We really wanted this one, we were really hungry and they’re a good team.”
The game started off sloppily, with both teams missing numerous open shots. After freshman guard McKayla Hernandez connected on a game-tying 3-pointer at the buzzer, the low-scoring first quarter ended in a nine-all deadlock.
Although the sloppy play continued in the second quarter, BU sophomore guard Imani Watkins began to find her stride offensively. She hit both an acrobatic transition layup and a long-range jumper to keep the Bearcats in the contest, yet she couldn’t prevent Stony Brook from entering the halftime break with a slender 20-17 lead.
In the second half, it was Binghamton’s defensive efforts that truly made the difference. Prior to the contest, SBU was second in the AE in scoring, averaging 62.5 points per game. The Seawolves, however, were held to 15 fewer than that by a well-executed full-court press that Cimino utilized for much of the contest. It finally began to pay dividends in the third quarter as the Seawolves expended droves of energy attempting to advance the ball up the court, hindering their half-court offense.
“They have one ball-handler, and any time you play a team with one ball-handler, you have success when you press in that zone,” Cimino said. “We were just trying to slow them down, and they were starting their offense with 18 on the shot-clock.”
From that point on, the Bearcats grabbed complete control of the contest. They outscored Stony Brook by 10 points throughout the second half, comfortably seeing out the game without any major scares.
While Watkins finished with a game-high 17 points, the team received offensive support from multiple players. In particular, freshman guard Rebecca Carmody contributed 12 points of her own.
“I challenged Rebecca [Carmody] at halftime,” Cimino said. “I told her she needed to rip through, attack and that she needed to take her girl off the dribble every time — and that’s what she did.”
Wednesday night’s victory kept BU in fourth place of the conference standings. The last time the Bearcats finished fourth in higher in the conference standings was in 2010-11.
BU’s next game is scheduled for Saturday at New Hampshire. Tip-off is set for 1 p.m. from the Lundholm Gymnasium in Durham, New Hampshire.