Maryland women’s basketball entered their toughest stretch of the season last week after taking on 24th-ranked Minnesota, the first of four consecutive games against ranked opponents. While Maryland took care of the Gophers on the road last Tuesday, they hit their second road bump of the season on Monday night after falling vs. seventh-ranked Texas, 89-51.
Texas jumped out to a 19-5 lead midway through the first quarter before taking a 30-point lead into halftime, but it was how the Terps lost that hurt most. On the same day the program announced Bri McDaniel suffered a season-ending injury, senior guard Shyanne Sellers went down midway through the second quarter with a knee injury that sidelined her for the remainder of the game.
“They’re two important pieces to the team and having to adjust midgame losing – I mean this is our first game without Bri [McDaniel] and that’s hard. She brings defense and energy off the bench and offense that we needed. And Shy too, losing her, we just have to regroup and just try to work, just try to fix things on how we can do it,” Kaylene Smikle said postgame.
“It was her right knee, made contact,” head coach Brenda Frese said postgame. “She’ll be evaluated by the doctor [Tuesday] and we’ll go from there. Sorely missed. She’s such a competitor and to be able to lose that piece so early into the game was impactful.”
While Monday’s loss also marks the second against a ranked opponent within two weeks while falling to 7-1 away from College Park this season, the Terps won’t have much time to sulk with a road game against ninth-ranked Ohio State up next on Thursday evening.
“We’re not going to get too high or too low,” Frese said. “We’ve done that the right way. We’ve had two losses. Clearly this one has been impacted by injury. For us,it’s just understanding we’re not going to get too high or too low in January and we’re going to figure it out. We always do. It’s unfortunate that this stretch is where the Big [Ten] put us coming off of this game and our bye week. Again, it is what it is. Onto the next. Now it’s Ohio State – two teams that are coming off of losses. It’s going to be prideful for both teams and then coming back [at] home with UCLA.”
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