By the time the Maryland and South Carolina women’s basketball teams meet Monday for a trip to the Final Four, 135 days will have passed since the last time they played.
For the Terps, the time from that second game of the season, an 81-56 drubbing at College Park to the reigning national champions, has been a period of cohesiveness, growth and learning.
“I think with every practice and every week of the season, we’ve gotten better, we’ve gotten closer,” Maryland guard Abby Meyers said Sunday. “We’ve kind of learned how to gel not only on the offensive end but the defensive end. And for us, I think we’ve been progressively learning each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
Maryland (28-6) has, indeed, blended nine newcomers into the mix, placing them on the doorstep of the sixth appearance in the national semifinals, following Saturday’s 76-59 win over Notre Dame.
The problem for Maryland, the second seed in the region, is that nothing has changed for the Gamecocks (35-0), meaning, they haven’t lost. South Carolina is riding a 41-game winning streak, dating back to the finals of the 2022 SEC tournament.
“But you see with South Carolina, I saw a stat the other day, their starters have started 130 games together, and when you look at our starters, it’s been about 34,” said Maryland coach Brenda Frese. “You see South Carolina, their roster is loaded, extremely impressive. I think how (coach) Dawn (Staley) has been able to manage their minutes and keep everyone happy has truly been impressive to be able to see.”
In the November 11 meeting, four South Carolina players scored in double figures, led by senior guard Zia Cooke (18 points) and senior forward Aliyah Boston, the reigning national player of the year, who had 16.
The Gamecocks blocked 11 Maryland shots that day and outrebounded the Terps 55-32. That the Terps have just one regular – senior Diamond Miller—who stands over 6-foot-2 will present a distinct challenge against a South Carolina frontline that has five players over that height.
Yeah, I mean, obviously we all know South Carolina, they’re huge,” said Maryland forward Faith Masonius. “I think Notre Dame prepared us a little bit with that height. And I think the No. 1 thing that it takes to play big players, big posts, and we’re not that big, is really just heart, hustle and working hard. It makes up for your height, makes up for that disadvantage. But we’ll find it somewhere else.”
That somewhere else might come in the persona of Miller, Maryland’s leading scorer and a second-team All-America, who did not play in the November meeting with an injury.
Boston and Miller are widely expected to be the first two players chosen in next month’s WNBA draft and Miller is looking forward to meeting the Gamecocks, though she won’t likely meet Boston head-to-head.
“It’s going to be fun,” said Miller, who had 18 points Saturday. “And Aliyah is a great player. They have a lot of great players, and our class 2019 is really thriving right now. It’s going to be fun.”
Sports Media Analyst
Milton Kent is a veteran of Baltimore and Maryland journalism. Kent began a long association with the Baltimore Sun in 1985, serving as the Evening Sun’s Howard County reporter for 2 ½ years before joining the paper’s features department as an entertainment writer in 1988. In the following year, Kent began covering men’s and women’s college basketball for the Evening Sun, concentrating on the Maryland men’s and women’s teams. He continued covering college basketball when the writing staffs of the Evening and Morning Suns merged in 1991. From there, he covered the Orioles for three seasons before becoming one of the nation’s first fulltime sports media critics for parts of six years. In 2000, he began covering the NBA until 2004, when he launched a high school sports column, which he wrote until he left the Sun in 2008. Kent joined the staff of AOL Fanhouse, an online sports operation in 2009, covering sports media and women’s basketball, until operations ceased in 2011. He then joined the faculty at Morgan State University in the fall of 2011, where he has taught until the present day. In addition to writing for various platforms, including Sports Illustrated.com and TV Guide, Kent has hosted “Sports At Large,” a weekly commentary program airing on WYPR (88.1 FM) since 2002.