The 10th-ranked Maryland women’s basketball team (20-3, 9-1 B1G) secured a two-game lead atop the Big Ten standings with a 67-54 win at Nebraska (17-7, 8-3) Sunday at Pinnacle Bank Arena.
Sophomore Kaila Charles led the way for the Terrapins with 25 points off 11-for-16 shooting from the field to go with a career-high 16 rebounds and three blocks. Brianna Fraserscored 14 points, including 12 in the second half and Eleanna Christinaki scored 11. Kristen Confroy grabbed 10 rebounds.
Maryland led 14-10 at the end of first quarter but was dealing with two early foul trouble. Stephanie Jones and Fraser each picked up two fouls in the first 10 minutes. The Terps pushed their lead to 10 at 24-14 off a layup by Channise Lewis with 3:45 left in the half, then an 8-0 Nebraska run cut it to a two-point game with 1:14 to play. Confroy found Lewis for an open three-pointer at the end of the shot clock to push it back to a five-point lead with 45 seconds left in the second quarter. Maryland would lead 27-22 at the break.
The Terrapins opened the third quarter on a 7-0 run to push their lead to 12 after scores by Charles, Confroy and Jones. Jones picked up third foul with 5:59 left in the third quarter. Fraser checked in and scored seven straight points to put Maryland up 43-34 with 3:30 left in the period. The Terrapins led by eight at 47-39, at the end of third quarter. A layup by the Huskers’ Maddie Simon cut the Terps’ lead to six with 2:48 to go at 55-49, but a three-point play by Fraser held them off. Lewis, Charles and Christinaki sunk free throws down the stretch to seal the win.
With the victory, Maryland reached the 20-win mark for the 14th straight season in head coach Brenda Frese’s 16 years in College Park. The Terps are 7-0 vs. the Huskers and 3-0 at Pinnacle Bank Arena. Maryland is ranked No. 11 in the Associated Press poll and No. 10 in the USA Today Coaches poll.
Next, the Terrapins will play at Michigan State (14-10, 4-7) Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Spartans’ Breslin Center in East Lansing.
Todd
This was another choppy offensive road game for MD that was more or less on a par with other road games against other B1G teams. The Terps shot 39.7% with 17 turnovers (of which Kaila Charles had 9) in a slow paced game. Compare this to 34.8% with 16 turnovers at Penn State and (one of their better road shooting percentages) 46.3% with 16 turnovers at Northwestern.
On a tempo adjusted basis, MD scored .916 points per possession in these three games. In their other 20 games they score at nearly 1.15 points per possession. The fact that they are winning these games is some evidence that the Terps are better defensively than many people realize. In fact, Maryland is in or near the top 25 in defensive points per possession for the season.
Although the match-ups are different, I expect MD to win Thursday’s game at Michigan State by a similar margin as the game against Nebraska unless they find their offense in which case they will win easily.
· 11/12/2019