At the end of every one-possession game, basketball coaches are often forced to make a split-second decision that can drastically impact the outcome of the game.

And that decision is whether or not to call a timeout with the game on the line.

Wednesday night, Massachusetts’s women’s basketball coach Sharon Dawley was forced to make that call twice in the final 20 seconds of the game in her team’s 66-63 loss against in-state rival Boston University.

Down three with 20 seconds left, Nola Henry took the inbounds pass and raced down the floor to get her offense set. Despite having one timeout remaining, the Minutewomen ran a set play to get the ball in the hands of their best shooter, Emily Mital.

“(Mital) got the look we wanted, it just didn’t go down,” Dawley said.

After a pair of missed free throws from the Terriers’ Whitney Turner, UMass was again forced to make a decision whether or not to talk things over on the sidelines. Instead, there was miscommunication amongst the Minutewomen as Jasmine Harris was forced to take a contested three as time expired.

“We have two set plays for 3-pointers,” Dawley said. “We missed the first one, and on the next possession we had a different play called but we ended up passing and going to the wrong side.”

UMass (2-7) struggled on offense all night, shooting just 18-of-61 from the field, including 3-of-17 from behind the arc, and 24-for-43 from the free throw line.

However, Dawley gave credit where credit was due, and complimented the defensive play of BU.

“(Mital) missed some key 3-pointers down the stretch,” Dawley said. “But I give a lot of that credit to BU’s defense. Ultimately, part of the reason we didn’t call a timeout on the final possession was so that their defense couldn’t get set.”

Along with Mital’s 11 points, center Kim Pierre-Louis was the only other Minutewoman who scored in double figures with 15 points to go along with her seven rebounds in just 21 minutes. Pierre-Louis scored nine of those in the first half, when she was virtually unguardable in the post.

“I have the ability to get to the rim,” Pierre-Louis said when asked about her individual play. “I feel as if I need to do that every time I touch the ball.”

Despite playing a physical game in the post, Pierre-Louis was forced to sit out for almost the entire second half after picking up her third and fourth foul just 15 seconds apart from each other.

However, she wasn’t the only UMass player who was forced to miss large stretches of the game with foul trouble. Rashida Timbilla picked up two quick fouls early in the first half which led to the Minutewomen struggling offensively with her on the bench. Mital was also forced to spectate for an extended period of time in the second half with four fouls of her own.

Rashidat Agboola finished with a game-high 21 points for Terriers (3-7), while Danielle Callahan went 9-for-10 from the foul line in the winning effort for the Terriers.

UMass has plenty of time to work things out at practice with an 11-day break before traveling to Bowling Green on Dec. 15.

Andrew Cyr can be reached at [email protected], and followed on Twitter @Andrew_Cyr.