If you didn’t know better, you’d swear the Maryland women’s basketball team had never been where they appear to be going.
The Terps clinched first place in the Big Ten regular season and the top seed in the league’s tournament, a feat they’ve accomplished three straight years and six times in the seven years they’ve been in the league.
But despite their familiarity at the top of the league’s food chain, head coach Brenda Frese hearkened back to the abrupt conclusion of last season and permitted her players to feast on success now, giving them the green light to cut down the nets in College Park.
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“The reason I wanted to do it this year is that it did hit differently,” Frese said about cutting down the nets. “I think we all recognize the fact that we are in a pandemic. There’s nothing guaranteed for tomorrow. Our purpose is to continue to play. But we saw a year ago when we were shut down completely and were unable to play in the NCAA Tournament.”
As the Terps (21-2 overall, 17-1 in league play) begin play in Indianapolis against eighth-seed Nebraska Thursday, there’s no reason to believe they’re done cutting down nets.
Maryland enters the Big Ten tournament on a roll, going the last six weeks without a loss, 10 games overall.
But unlike, say last year, when they shared first place with Northwestern before the season shut down, the Terps have run roughshod through what is arguably the second strongest conference in the country with near impunity.
Since dropping a two-point decision at then No. 14-ranked Ohio State Jan. 25, Maryland has laid waste to the Big Ten. In its 10-game run, the Terps have won by an average of 28.6 points per win, with all coming by double figures.
While the streak includes drubbings over the league’s bottom feeders, Maryland has also clubbed some of the better teams in the Big Ten, with a 25-point win over No. 12 Michigan in Ann Arbor last week.
The Terps’ 111-93 pasting of Iowa two weeks ago has already become the stuff of legend. Maryland opened the game with a 41-point first quarter in which they hit eight of nine three-pointers.
Maryland posted 68 points in the first half against the Hawkeyes – one off the conference record. That’s six more points than they scored for the entire game against No. 25 Northwestern.
Few teams have been able to slow or even stay in the same zip code as the Maryland offensive juggernaut, which, at 91.3 points a game, is the highest scoring unit in the nation.
The Terps’ offense, which features six players averaging in double figures, ranks in the top 10 nationally in a variety of categories, including field goal percentage (fourth), three-point percentage (second), assists (seventh) and free-throw percentage (ninth).
Within the gaudy team stats has emerged a balanced, efficient attack led by sophomores Ashley Owusu and Diamond Miller, the leading scorers.
Owusu, who has for a second season shifted to point guard to make up for an injury to the projected starter, has landed on most national Player of the Year lists, with a dazzling 2-1 assist/turnover ratio.
Miller, who joined Owusu on the Big Ten first team all-conference, was the league’s Most Improved Player. Their height and wingspan make them particularly effective on defense, where they frequently turn errant passes into easy scores.
They’re joined on the perimeter by senior Katie Benzan, a grad transfer from Harvard. All Benzan has done is lead the nation in three-point percentage at 52 percent, while shooting 94 percent from the free throw line. Benzan’s presence has more than made up for the departure of Taylor Mikesell, who transferred to Oregon.
Maryland’s success has largely come this season without forward Angel Reese (St. Frances). Reese, ranked second by most rating services among incoming freshmen, was expected to provide a combination of perimeter and interior presence to augment Miller and Owusu.
Instead, Reese missed most of three months with a right foot fracture. She returned in the Iowa game and is working her way back into the rotation. Reese’s continued development may speak volumes about how far into March Maryland will go.
As it is, the Terps should have enough to capture a fifth Big Ten tournament title. The Buckeyes, who gave Maryland their lone league loss, will not play in Indianapolis as a self-punishment for recruiting violations.
And if they can get by Michigan, Northwestern or Illinois – teams they dispatched easily – the Terps would likely get Indiana or Rutgers in the final. They beat the Hoosiers and Scarlet Knights each by four – their closest Big Ten wins this season – but those games were in mid-December and early January, while Reese was still nursing her injury.
And, as the top seed, Maryland would only have to beat Rutgers or Indiana, not both, meaning it would probably be a good idea for Frese to have a pair of scissors on hand and to keep them handy.
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.