Maryland ended its Big Ten Tournament journey early after suffering a devastating 98-71 loss to Michigan in the quarterfinals Friday afternoon at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
“Just disappointed we came out as flat as we did,” said head coach Brenda Frese on the loss. "Can’t happen in March. I felt we couldn’t buy a bucket to start that first quarter, but I loved our response in the second quarter. I thought we got back to playing and being who we are, getting everyone involved and getting on the glass."
The start wasn’t pretty for the Terps. Michigan dominated the whole first quarter. After a missed layup by forward Allie Kubek, the Wolverines got things turned on. Maryland only scored six points in the quarter.
Guard Saylor Poffenbarger briefly saw some action within the first minute of the first quarter. This was her first game back after the lower leg injury she had sustained against Northwestern.
With 6:10 remaining in the quarter, Michigan shut out Maryland with an impressive 21-0 run, putting the Wolverines on top of the Terps, 27-6, to end the quarter. The Terps seemed to be having difficulty finding their rhythm, and head coach Brenda Frese knew that something needed to change immediately.
“I think we were a little bit sloppy on defense,” said guard Sarah Te-Biasu. “They were really aggressive from the start.”
However, the second quarter started to look like the Maryland basketball Terps fans are used to and expect from this team. The Terps flipped the script and recorded a 16-0 run.
Te-Biasu ended the second quarter by recording 16 points alone after not scoring all of them in the first. Maryland scored 31 points in the second quarter to enter the half down, 41-37.
During halftime, Frese’s message to her Terps was all about intensity.
“We talked about that intensity we needed to continue to have with our ball pressure and, you know, aggressiveness we saw we were able to speed them up, and then we were hoping on the offensive, and we could get back to our pace and get playing for one another,” said Frese.
Coming out of the half, that chance of gaining the lead slipped out of Maryland’s fingers. Michigan responded by ensuring Maryland couldn’t gain any closer to the Wolverines' lead.
The Wolverines went on to have a successful 6-0 shortly followed by an 11-0 run. Guard Shyanne Sellers had herself an extremely quiet day. Sellers only scored two points the whole game, which came off a jumper a minute into the third quarter.
Yet again, Michigan added 28 points to its impressive third-quarter lead, compared to only 12 points Maryland could produce. This left the Terps down 20 points, 64-49, with only one quarter left for redemption.
After seeing how the Terps responded to the lead Michigan put on them in the first, Maryland fans were hopeful for a repeat and a lead for the first time in the game. Unfortunately, the cards weren’t in Maryland’s favor today.
Even though Maryland scored 22 points in the fourth, Michigan once again upped them with 29 points.
Te-Biasu recorded 25 points for the Terps on the night, followed by forward Christina Dalce’s 19 points. The Terps shot 65% from the free throw and 31% from the three.
Going forward, Dalce said the team’s mentality needs to change. Instead of going in with the mindset that the Terps will have one more game, she said, “it needs to be like, this is really the last one until next year, and we have to make a statement.” She said today’s loss was unacceptable.
Maryland faced Michigan in mid-February this year, and the Terps downed the Wolverines in the Xfinity Center, 85-77. In 2019, the Terps defeated the Wolverines in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals, 73-72.
This now makes it the 17th all-time meeting between the two teams. The Terps continue to own the series, 13-4. Frese is also 14-4 against the Wolverines in her career.
As Michigan advances to the semi-finals against USC, the Terps must wait for another tip-off until NCAA tournament play. The Terps hope to hear their names called as one of the teams that would be selected to host a game.
By: Brinkley Smith
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